Peak Elon Musk Derangement Syndrome
A new virus has been infecting both the physical and virtual world since late 2022: Elon Musk Derangement Syndrome. We have not seen a derangement global pandemic quite like this since the outbreak of Trump Derangement Syndrome in 2016.
We may have now reached the peak of the infection wave after Elon Musk destroyed BBC tech reporter James Clayton in an interview. Clayton asked Musk about the alleged increase in hateful content on Twitter since his takeover. When Musk asked for examples of hateful content Clayton said it’s content that is slightly racist or sexist to solicit a response. When Musk asked him for examples of so-called racism or sexism on Twitter he couldn’t provide any.
This month Musk will be phasing out legacy blue verified checkmarks on Twitter accounts that don’t pay the $8-11USD per month Twitter Blue subscription fee. The launch of Twitter Blue allowing the blue-check verification to anyone who pays outraged the world’s media and entertainment elite who believe that blue-check verification should only be for them. Musk launched Twitter Blue to make the platform profitable again.
The elites’ plan to defeat Elon’s paid blue checks rollout was to change their names to Elon Musk. When their accounts got suspended for impersonation, the most prominent suspension being Kathy Griffin they cried their free speech was being suppressed for triggering Elon. The irony and nerve of such people who cheered on Twitter suspensions under its former management, but when they get suspended under Elon’s management for deliberately violating an impersonation policy it’s an outrage.
There were also cries from the same types of free speech suppression when several mainstream media journalists were temporarily suspended for reposting an account that posts Elon’s private jet’s real-time coordinates which he sees as a form of doxxing putting his family in immediate danger.
The latest tantrum by establishment media outlets about the new Twitter has been PBS and NPR leaving the platform after being labelled government-funded media. This label has subsequently been applied to the BBC further enranging the taxpayer-funded UK news outlet whose reporter Musk just humiliated.
The prediction that Twitter would crash and die under Musk’s ownership always appeared to be a form of disinformation. The Silicon Valley establishment was horrified that Musk immediately fired Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, the Head of Twitter Legal, Policy and Trust Vijaya Gadde and CFO Ned Segal. Musk then laid off nearly half of the Twitter staff. In hindsight, it seems nothing of value has been lost.
Musk giving access to distant journalists the Twitter communications logs under previous management exposed how arbitrary the process was to suspend President Donald Trump from the platform after January 6 2021, how they suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020 and Twitter’s collaboration with the FBI and other government agencies to suppress and delete so-called misinformation and disinformation.
The threatened mass exodus from Twitter by Musk’s haters was never followed through. The most some social justice accounts did was put a link to their Mastodon accounts in their Twitter name or bio. It is clear despite the wave of Elon Musk Derangement Syndrome Twitter is going to remain one of the world’s most-used social networking sites. Apple quickly backed down on a reported threat to take Twitter off its App Store.
Elon Musk is once again the world’s richest man despite all the predictions his wealth would decline when French billionaire Bernard Arnault founder of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH temporarily overtook him as the world’s richest man.
Musk’s Telsa electric cars and renewable electricity storage batteries are still too lucrative an enterprise in the climate change fighting era. Not enough greenies have given up their Telsa because they don’t like Musk’s politics and how he has transformed Twitter.
Elon Musk does still intend to step down as Twitter CEO when he finds ‘someone foolish enough to take over from him’. But he has proven all his deranged haters wrong since he took over Twitter for $44 billion in October last year. Twitter with the return of many banned accounts (though some such as Nick Fuentes and Mark Collett were re-banned) has made Twitter more of the Town Square it once was and which was Musk’s aim in taking over Twitter.