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Writer's pictureHowie Klein

A Match Made In Hell Between Two Self-Serving, Grotesque Billionaires

Eventually Musk Will Move Twitter's Headquarters To Dubai Or Moscow



Yesterday, before Musk’s amateurish, technically flawed and incredibly boring stunt with Trump, Judd Legum and his team looked into how the deranged billionaire has used Twitter to campaign for Trump without it counting as a campaign contribution. The company, which he bought for $44 billion, has been a stinker for Musk and is now worth around $12.5 billion, if that. But, the world’s richest man, worth around a quarter trillion dollars, that kind of loss doesn’t mean much to him, at least not financially. Besides. Owning it “gives him full control over its algorithm. According to a report by The Verge, Musk ‘created a special system’ that promotes his posts ‘to the entire user base.’ The new system initially ‘artificially boosted Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000— a constant score that ensured his tweets rank higher than anyone else’s in the feed.’ Musk himself posted a crude meme mocking the ubiquity of his posts on the network after the algorithm change. Although the artificial boost to Musk's posts has been moderated somewhat, Musk continues to dominate the default ‘For You’ feed of nearly everyone who uses Twitter.”


Lately he’s “weaponized his account to flood millions of Twitter users with pro-Trump and anti-Vice President Kamala Harris messages.” In the last month alone, he’s sent out at least 173 posts promoting Trump and Vance or attacking their Democratic opponents. He’s had Twitter label pro-Kamala accounts as spam or restricted their reach. Trump, always the transactional bribe-taking chimpanzee, “clearly appreciates Musk's efforts. At an August 4 rally, Trump announced he was reversing his longstanding opposition to election cars because Musk also serves as the CEO of Tesla. ‘I’m for electric cars. I have to be because, you know, Elon endorsed me very strongly,’ Trump said. ‘So, I have no choice.’”



Last night the Musk-Trump event— an unmitigated disaster— was called “the most expensive political ad of all time,” you know, ‘cause often $44 billion. “Musk,” wrote Legum, “is not a journalist and, when it comes to Trump, has no interest in being fair or accurate. Many of Musk's political posts on Twitter— which are uniformly pro-Trump and anti-Harris— include false or misleading information.” Like this Musk-garbage:


  • Musk falsely suggested Walz mandated that schools provide “tampons for boys in middle school”

  • Musk shared a doctored video of Harris calling herself “the ultimate diversity hire” (Twitter’s rules require deep fakes to be labeled or removed. But weeks after Musk posted the fake video, it has not been labeled as manipulated or removed.) 

  • Musk attacked Harris for identifying herself to an audience that included blind and visually impaired people

  • Musk said Harris should not be president because she does not have children (he said step-children don’t count)

  • Musk falsely claimed that Democrats are “importing vast numbers of voters” 




He’s one of the most hated men in the country— so hated that his rhetoric is making Tesla toxic for the kind of people who can afford to buy them. I ordered one a number of years ago but cancelled when someone told me it was his company. The Guardian noted, just as the U.K. is coping with right-wing riots he incited, that “In Tesla online forums owners of the cars debate whether Musk’s politics have affected the brand. Bumper stickers are available for purchase online featuring slogans such as: ‘I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy.’”


Yesterday before the extravaganza, NBC News reported that “False or misleading claims about the U.S. election that Elon Musk has posted to Twitter this year have generated nearly 1.2 billion views, according to an analysis published Thursday by the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate. Researchers from the center said they identified 50 instances this year when Musk posted election claims that have been debunked by independent fact-checkers but spread widely on the app anyway. None of the 50 posts by Musk displayed a “Community Note” to correct his claims or add context, calling into question the effectiveness of Twitter’s user-driven fact-checking system, the center said… ‘What Musk is doing is creating a sort of Colosseum-style spectacle of encouraging, amplifying and himself spreading disinformation,’ Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said in a phone interview... ‘Musk has told advertisers, the government and others that Community Notes are his solution to the disinformation problem on Twitter, but it clearly isn’t working given that his lies remain unchallenged,’ Ahmed said.” 


Musk's very own interview with a vampire

Meanwhile, also before the show, the Washington Post noted that Musk’s Twitter “feed often reads more like a right-wing activist account, with alarmist posts about immigration and missives against ‘woke’ ideology… Musk’s openly partisan participation on the site he bought in October 2022 reflects a broader evolution in his public persona from business-minded tech prodigy to right-wing firebrand. It has also raised questions about Musk’s intentions for the social networking site, which he said he purchased to promote free speech and a more open exchange of ideas. In some ways, the site has become a personal megaphone for his provocative political views.”


Cheating on Twitter isn’t the only way Musk is trying to put Trump backing the White House. He’s financing a right-wing organization, America PAC, that aims to turn out 800,000 low-propensity  voters in battleground states for Musk’s ally. Dana Mattioli, Joe Palazzolo and Emily Glazer reported that Musk is very hands on with his $160 million investment. The operation is a chaotic mess and it’s already obvious that the goal isn’t going to be met— even all of Musk’s money is going to be spent, most of it wasted. “[S]ome Republican political operatives,” the trio reported, “said they fear the early stumbles could be costly for the Trump campaign.” It’s plagued by the same kind of missteps that devalued Twitter when Musk bought that and nearly destroyed it.


This looks like a classic case of some politics grifters taking Musk for a ride, while Musk tries applying Silicon Valley business practices to ultra-shady Texas and Florida GOP politics, featuring inflated prices, massive kickbacks and theft. America PAC is a madhouse, burning through cash quickly and people and groups being hired and fired and rehired, including Trump haters from the failed DeSantis campaign. “The turnover at the PAC,” wrote Legum, “was followed by online glitches and complaints from election officials in swing states that the website was collecting personal info without helping people register to vote… The website draws people in with digital ads. America PAC spent $899,458 on Facebook and Instagram ads between July 8 and July 23.”


Like everything Musk touches, the extravaganza last night was plagued with technical glitches and confusion, just like Tesla and America PAC. Trump finally got his platform about 40 minutes late. Twenty minutes earlier Musk lied and said the problem was an orchestrated Denial of Service attack. But the rest of Twitter wasn’t impacted and a Twitter staffer told The Verge there was a “99 percent” chance Elon was lying about an attack. and once "the interview"started, it was just Trump rambling on with the same old bullshit he spews whenever he can find someone to listen. Musk's pathetic softball questions gave Trump the opportunity to use his tired talking points lie about the 2020 election, his criminal cases and immigrants and to gratuitoulsy insult Kamala and Biden— Musk eagerly agreeing. CNN counted at least 20 false claims. Any minute now we'll be hearing how many lies each of them told per minute.


David Frum: “That was a crazy public service provided by Elon Musk and Twitter. The X Spaces interview delivered Donald Trump without makeup or dress-up, talking unselfconsciously: manic, boastful, untruthful, aggrieved, abusive, obsessive, random, ignorant, tedious, bitchy— and ultimately, formless and endless… Meandering, solipsistic, and crushingly boring— the interview was an awful premonition of the rest of Trump’s life should he lose again, in November: wandering the corridors of his clubs, going from table to table, buttonholing the dwindling number of guests, monologuing relentlessly until they squirm away.”



This letter above was sent to Musk Monday before the interview from the EU’s Digital Commissioner Thierry Breton reminding Musk of his legal obligation to stop hate speech and the “amplification of harmful content.” As of last month, Twitter was already facing millions of dollars in fines for breaking EU social media regulations. Musk, currently in a serious row with the U.K.’s new Labour government for inciting the violent right-wing riots in that country, tweeted his response to Breton:



1 Comment


Guest
Aug 14

And the difference between musk and the murdochs is...?


The only solution, since democraps won't do shit, is to just stop consuming all of them.


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