[Retrospectiva 2022] The love-hate relationship between Elon Musk and the world

the acquisition of twitter per Elon Musk it was presumably the occasion of the 12 months for many who observe the billionaire, however it’s removed from being the one one in his life. Throughout the interval when he proposed the acquisition, going by way of when he tried to run from it till, successfully finalizing it, a collection of scandals took over the information involving the identify of the one who was as soon as the richest man on the planet.

Evidently, a lot of that is the fault of… Elon Musk: many controversies that affected his life in 2022 got here from his eagerness to publish, in an uncontrolled approach, controversial supplies, denials or just unusual in opinion – and identical to any public particular person, the he says, shortly goes viral.

Picture: Noah Berger/Bloomberg

In January of this 12 months, the primary “rusk” got here from Elon Musk himself: the billionaire approached Jack Sweeney, the web person behind the “ElonJet” account on Twitter. The profile adopted the actions of the aircraft flights rented by Musk, disclosing the open data – nothing personal – hours after the journey passed off. Musk supplied him one thing near BRL 30,000 for him to cease, however he was promptly refused.

Save this episode, as a result of it should come again in a short time.

All through February and March, Musk was comparatively quiet, posting posts geared toward Tesla Or the SpaceX, the 2 fundamental firms of many he leads. On March 31, nonetheless, Musk was already promising to create his personal social community to avoid Twitter, which, in response to his notion, didn’t enable for freedom of expression.

The billionaire, the social community and…my goodness, what a cleaning soap opera!

The background was in place that may dictate the course of conversations all through the remainder of the 12 months: in April, Musk confirmed the acquisition of virtually 10% of Twitter shares, changing into the corporate’s largest shareholder and, he hoped, virtually succeeded a chair in board board members and administrators, which didn’t occur.

As a way to put a restrict on Musk’s management, Twitter adopted a method generally known as poison tablet (“poisoned tablet”, in free translation): basically, the corporate opened up higher prospects for buying shares, reducing the unit worth of every share and, consequently, diluting the just about 10% managed by the billionaire. Musk’s response: “Let’s throw more cash at Twitter.”

That was accomplished…by the use of a $44 billion proposal that may see Elon Musk turn out to be CEO of Twitter months later. Between the proposal, its acceptance, the contract that signed the negotiation, the try to evade the acquisition that he himself recommended and his acceptance to forestall one other defeat in court docket, in October 2022, Elon Musk turns into the proprietor of Twitterinstantly asking for the top of Parag Agrawal, then chief of the social community and chosen by the Jack Dorseycreator of the platform.

The onerous line of “cleansing” continued the next week: within the first weekend as CEO, Musk confirmed the mass dismissal of hundreds of staff, coming into into disagreement with the Employee Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN, in its acronym). in English) from the US.

Picture: Shutterstock

Pursuant to American legislation, dismissals motivated by company restructuring – that’s, with out direct explanation for error by the worker or the corporate – have to be notified 60 days upfront. So, the primary labor investigation inquiry was launched in opposition to post-Elon Musk Twitter.

What adopted had been months of doubts, questions and an enormous abandonment of massive individualswho got here to see the brand new administration as problematic, permissive with misinformation and abuse that, for a very long time, they thought of excluded or, on the very least, minimized: Musk allowed the return of dangerous individuals – Andrew Tate, for instance, the fugitive influencer from the USA and arrested this week in Romania, accused of the crime of rape and of operating a human trafficking and sexual exploitation operation.

There have been so many issues that it’s troublesome to narrate utterly on this textual content: right here on the positioning, the primary 4 pages of the “Elon Musk” tag are devoted to his mishaps in managing Twitter (that is why we nonetheless have the tag “Elon Musk on Twitter” as reinforcement to attempt to additional phase the quantity of data). Between highlights and printed notes, our web site lists 22 publications per inner web page: do the maths.

Musk’s complete downside with Twitter comes from the notion that the person determined to alter – for the more serious – issues that already labored nicely earlier than him: the person verification program, for instance, contemplated identification affirmation for content material creators, firms, celebrities and political personalities, along with giving credibility to the profile as an account that conveyed data from world-renowned sources.

Musk overhauled the method, throwing the “blue checkmark” to the Twitter Bluethe paid a part of the social community: after three months of launching, revoking, suspending and relaunching, the platform went dwell on the final day 12exhibiting that anybody who paid for it was robotically verified, whatever the profile’s capability to convey respected data.

The outcome was as apparent as doable: as surveyed by Mashablea number of paying profiles started altering their account shows, posing as well-known sportsmen and posting false data – no, LeBron James has not transferred to any staff and nonetheless performs basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers, however a verified tweet mentioned precisely that .

Following sports activities transactions and information might turn out to be a complete mess with the brand new verification system

Already faux LeBron and Aroldis Chapman tweets going round pic.twitter.com/vQgMqws1W0

— Joon Lee (@joonlee) November 9, 2022

There may be additionally the issue of Elon Musk not realizing find out how to hold inner affairs at residence: in a very crude interplay, the CEO criticized the slowness of the official social community app on Android gadgets, putting the accountability for this on the event staff. The staff chief answered him, publicly, saying he was fallacious and exhibiting the place the error was when questioned by the boss.

After which, Musk despatched the man away. And now just lately fired, the previous worker started to reply to all interview requests despatched by the media.

Oh yeah: bear in mind the “ElonJet”? The topic got here up once more after Musk took management of Twitter: he banned not solely the talked about profile, in addition to these of journalists who coated the topic in excessive circulation autos, reminiscent of Washington Publish and WIRED. The billionaire accused everybody of doxxinghowever forgot to say that no data launched was personal, and all the fabric solely went dwell hours after Musk himself modified his route.

Apart from that, we had a number of different episodes: the little row with AppleMusk himself stating in testimonials that he does not even need to be the CEO of any of its firms, the safety flaws of Twitter underneath his administrationhe ordered the ballot interplay guidelines to alter as a result of…didn’t like the results of a ballot he printed…

Additionally it is value mentioning the default on lease for the corporate’s headquarters, which Musk merely…did not pay (in response to the New York Instances), the dismissal of moderators of content material that prevented the circulation of disinformation (CNBC) and even the rampant use of Tesla shares to finance the upkeep of Twitter accounts after the acquisition – sure, actually, utilizing one firm’s cash to pay the payments of one other, which resulted in a 28% drop within the worth of shares of the automaker, irritating traders.

Picture: The Joe Rogan Expertise (2018)/Playback

However will we now have extra Elon Musk in 2023?

In all, the 12 months 2022 was very troubled for Elon Musk – and we’re not even speaking in regards to the youngsters who don’t need to learn about him, the opposite two youngsters he had with an worker of one other firm, the hints he takes from the previous spouse Grimes.

Have you learnt what’s extra worthy of consideration? That is just the start: every thing you’ve got learn to this point occurred over a interval of two and a half months, three months on the most. The actual “motion” begins even in 2023, when Musk successfully turns into CEO in actual fact of Twitter and begin the 12 months already implementing the modifications you need.

Yeah, we’re nonetheless going to work lots on this topic subsequent 12 months…