11 problematic Elon Musk tweets that haven’t aged well
After more than six months of chaotic, headline-grabbing negotiations, the richest man in the world is officially in charge of Twitter. Completing his $44 billion takeover of the social media platform on Thursday 27 October 2022, the first thing “Chief Twit” Elon Musk reportedly did was fire CEO Parag Agrawal and two other top executives, CFO Ned Segal and head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde.
“The bird is freed,” Musk tweeted in delight. The 51-year-old has previously mentioned that he wants to prevent the platform from becoming an echo chamber of hate and division—side note: Musk is infamous for not taking his own advice—as well as “defeating” spam bots and making the algorithms that determine how content is presented to its users publicly available.
At the same time, however, it should be noted that little Muskie is yet to offer any details on how he will achieve all this and who will run the company. Instead, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said on Thursday that he did not acquire Twitter to make more money but “to try to help humanity, whom I love.” Given his doomsday breeding kink, I believe he has the potential to do the latter.
At the end of the day, the billionaire’s Twitter saga is far from over—and that’s saying something, given the fact that his presence on the platform has become synonymous with shitposting and spitballing. Over the years, Musk has thrown a plethora of juvenile insults at Twitter and ex-CEO Agrawal as well as tweeted some tone-deaf and derogatory claims which were later dragged into court.
From his middle school bus obsession with sex, flatulence, and weed jokes to mocking gender pronouns, passing gross sexist comments, and even silencing his own detractors, here are 11 reasons why the self-described “free speech absolutist” should have his smartphone taken away from him for good:
1. The pandemic misinformation, part I
The coronavirus panic is dumb
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2020
2. Let this sink in…
Pronouns suck
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2020
Oh, and also this:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 14, 2020
3. That time he supported Kanye “Ye” West running for US president
Well, this hasn’t aged well at all…
You have my full support!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2020
4. For context, this is a distasteful boob joke about women in STEM
Honestly. As a shareholder and customer, this is really a puzzling and disappointing attempt at humor. We are trying to encourage more women to pursue technology degrees and careers. I cannot see how this helps that effort in any way.
— EricWenger (@EricWenger) October 30, 2021
5. Spoiler alert: Musk writes “at least” half of his tweets from the toilet
💩
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022
6. The time he likened Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Hitler
7. When he was triggered after being criticised as an elitist
You’re an idiot
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2017
8. The time Musk called Senator Elizabeth Warren a Karen because she said he should pay more in taxes
Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen 🙏
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 14, 2021
9. Whatever this was…
in case u need to lose a boner fast pic.twitter.com/fcHiaXKCJi
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2022
10. Generic tax the rich response
I keep forgetting that you’re still alive
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 14, 2021
11. Yeah, this is the dude who owns Twitter now
