Another rich guy goes bonkers

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Online games news Tedious Retro Gamer, 15-12-2022
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Yeah, yeah, the same old story - boy inherits some money, uses his spiel to turn it into more money and then goes bonkers. How many times have you heard that one?

Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed genius, who got lucky with the PayPal merger in 2000, then got involved in Tesla as an investor a few years later, now the proud owner of Twitter, went bonkers. Again.

There is a saying that "there are people so cool that they start to believe it themselves" and Elon Musk looks like a poster boy for that phrase. He was never a particularly down-to-Earth guy, there is a long, long list of things that he would deliver "by November next year" that it is not even funny any more (like Hyperloop, fully autonomous cars, fully autonomous taxis, electric trucks, roof tiles that would be solar panels as well).

But now, when he bought Twitter for (according to people who care about those things) triple the amount of money the platform is actually worth, sacked half of the staff, forced others to leave, broke the local laws for turning offices into bedrooms, re-introduced former president to the platform (about which even that former president doesn’t care), brought several problems by introduction, retractions, reintroduction and reconfiguration of Twitter blue tick feature (and put several companies in financial problems while doing it), now, he finally went bonkers.

First of all, he, of course, completely ignored the things he promised in his tweets that he will or won’t do (like turning Twitter HQ into a homeless shelter, not blocking the Twitter account of someone, who tracks the movement of Musk’s jet), as the self-proclaimed fighter for freedom of speech. But now, for an unknown reason, he went on stage during Dave Chappelle stand-up and was booed off that stage. I have no idea who came up with that bizarre concept, but it was one of the most awkward moments of this year - a comedian trying to discipline his audience (why?) or a geeky billionaire, who tries to make jokes about people he just fired from Twitter.

But now, that his fragile ego did not get the dopamine injection, he went after... Anthony Fauci, of all people. In his "subtle" tweets, Musk pretty much accused the immunologist, who probably saved thousands of lives in the US, of being the evil force behind the lockdowns during the global pandemic and that now he should be prosecuted for it. Even if you can make any sense of that, couldn’t a man (and I use the "man" term very broadly) who is in charge of a few companies, find a better way of spending his time than starting arguments on Twitter? It reminds me of a certain former President of the United States, who was waging wars on Twitter, while his people were dying due to a global pandemic.

I guess we will have to wait and see how fast Musk can sink Twitter because the way he behaves lately I don’t see much chance of financial survival for the platform. Even in the best moments, it wasn’t bringing much income, but now that the advertisers have already left or see how damaging for their own brands Twitter has become, it looks like the future of Twitter is rather grim. Unless Elon makes a public poll to re-brand it, but even in that case my money is on "Hitler did nothing wrong" as the new name. It somehow fits with the whole Musk’s new persona.

Although... to be fair, it is not exactly a new persona for Musk. Tesla was several times audited lacking safety measures for their employees on the factory floor, higher than average number of accidents in workplace, not reporting some of the accidents, not protecting employees from harassment in workplace (including racial harassment), not to mention the less-than-emphatic responses to problems from Musk himself. Maybe he was that bonkers billionaire all along, we just didn’t hear about this because the media were too dazzled by his spiel, to look behind the facade.