Elon's Twitter

[N.E. Brigand]

Wall Street Journal stories are always paywalled, but per this article on Yahoo, the WSJ recently reported that Elon Musk regularly uses Ketamine without a prescription. A lawyer whose firm works on security clearances said the government will probably have to review Musk's clearances (for SpaceX military contracts), because the government position tends to be that "someone who takes a cavalier approach to drug use may take a cavalier approach to the handling of classified information."

[N.E. Brigand]

About Elon but not about Twitter: "Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints" (Reuters). This is because at Musk's direction, around ten years ago "Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide 'rosy' projections of how far owners can drive before needing to recharge." And drivers were complaining.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Times of Israel reports that Kanye West's Twitter/X account has been reinstated. West was banned last year for posting anti-Semitic content.

[N.E. Brigand]

On Friday and Saturday, Twitter refused to let San Francisco building inspectors examine the large flashing X that Musk had built on the roof of company headquarters.

[N.E. Brigand]

The large illuminated X sign has been removed from Twitter's roof.

[RoseMorninStar]

The large illuminated X sign has been removed from Twitter's roof.

You mean from X's roof.

[N.E. Brigand]

No stars upon thars.

[Sunsilver]

The large illuminated X sign has been removed from Twitter's roof.

Good! Have rarely seen such an absolutely butt-ugly corporate logo!
Honestly, many companies do marketing research, and PAY to have a logo designed for them which will appeal to consumers! Musk obviously skipped that step.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Musk has a long history with the letter X. What is now PayPal was originally a company run by Musk called X.com.

[Sunsilver]

I know, Voronwë, but still...

[Frelga]

Screenshot_20230801-094242.jpg (53.91 KiB) Viewed 3626 times

[RoseMorninStar]

Indonesia blocks Musk’s X.com under curbs on porn, gambling

Ministry of Communication and Informatics says it is contact with social media company about purpose of the domain.

No matter how cool Musk thinks 'X' is, many have negative association /reaction to the letter.

[Dave_LF]

PSA: Depending on workflow and app, some of the X-Twitter links I've copied lately have gone to the clipboard as x.com instead of twitter.com. The HoF plugin doesn't recognize x.com links*, but if you manually edit the start of the URL to twitter.com and leave the rest unchanged, it will still work (for now).

*Which is arguably a good thing, since it makes it harder for them to spy

[N.E. Brigand]

Ronan Farrow writes about "Elon Musk's Shadow Rule."

It's about SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla, and Twitter.

In the past twenty years, against a backdrop of crumbling infrastructure and declining trust in institutions, Musk has sought out business opportunities in crucial areas where, after decades of privatization, the state has receded. The government is now reliant on him, but struggles to respond to his risk-taking, brinkmanship, and caprice. Current and former officials from nasa, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration told me that Musk’s influence had become inescapable in their work, and several of them said that they now treat him like a sort of unelected official. One Pentagon spokesman said that he was keeping Musk apprised of my inquiries about his role in Ukraine and would grant an interview with an official about the matter only with Musk’s permission. “We’ll talk to you if Elon wants us to,” he told me. In a podcast interview last year, Musk was asked whether he has more influence than the American government. He replied immediately, “In some ways.” Reid Hoffman told me that Musk’s attitude is “like Louis XIV: ‘L’état, c’est moi.’”

Musk’s power continues to grow. His takeover of Twitter, which he has rebranded “X,” gives him a critical forum for political discourse ahead of the next Presidential election. He recently launched an artificial-intelligence company, a move that follows years of involvement in the technology. Musk has become a hyper-exposed pop-culture figure, and his sharp turns from altruistic to vainglorious, strategic to impulsive, have been the subject of innumerable articles and at least seven major books, including a forthcoming biography by Walter Isaacson. But the nature and the scope of his power are less widely understood.

And it confirms that Musk told U.S. officials during negotiations about Starlink in Ukraine that he was in direct communication with Putin.

Plus there are lots of references to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[N.E. Brigand]

The United States is suing SpaceX for allegedly discriminating against asylum seekers who applied for SpaceX jobs; SpaceX apparently claimed, in violation of the law, that only U.S. citizens or permanent residents were eligible to work for the company. The investigation started in June 2020 (i.e., while Donald Trump was president).

[N.E. Brigand]

Per NBC, Xwitter only banned the homophobic account of a man who last week shot and killed a California woman (because her store was flying a Pride flag) more than a day after the account was first publicly identified and several hours after NBC reported on Xwitter's inaction.

[N.E. Brigand]

Elon Musk is blaming the Anti-Defamation League for antisemitism on Xwitter.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

He also is claiming that he is going to sue the Anti-Defamation League for defamation.

[N.E. Brigand]

Elon Musk should probably never visit Ukraine.

[N.E. Brigand]

It occurs to me that Russia's manipulation of Elon Musk is a lot like the Soviet Union's (and later Russia's) manipulation of Donald Trump: use the threat of nuclear retaliation to frighten a powerful American into undermining his nation's national interests. Mind you, I agree that nuclear war is a dangerous possibility. But notice that neither Trump nor Musk was moved to call for the U.S.S.R. / Russia to back down.