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Elon Musk’s worst tweets: From freelance diplomacy to personal insults

The world’s richest man and CEO of multiple companies always finds time for a good Twitter troll

Bevan Hurley
Friday 28 October 2022 17:03 BST
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Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for second time

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Elon Musk has completed his $44bn takeover of Twitter, anointed himself “Chief Twit”, and declared: “Let the good times roll”.

Musk began his tenure by reportedly firing several senior executives including CEO Parag Agrawal on Thursday, the first step in what he has promised will be a radical overhaul of the social media company.

The world’s richest man and prolific tweeter has used the platform to wade into geopolitics, lob personal insults, and even allegedly manipulate Tesla stock price, all while keeping himself firmly at the centre of attention.

Between insulting politicians and making light of his ever expanding brood of children, here are some of his spiciest takes on his newly acquired platform.

Running afoul of regulators

Musk has incurred the wrath of government regulators several times over the years. In 2018, he was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of misleading investors and driving Tesla stock up when he falsely claimed he had private funding to take the electronic vehicle maker private at $420 a share (Musk frequently uses 420 as a shorthand reference to marijuana, hence the $54.20 Twitter share price offer).

“Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured,” he tweeted.

In a court settlement, he was fined $40m and removed as chair of Tesla and agreed to run his tweets past lawyers.

Undeterred, he posted in 2020 that “Tesla stock price is too high imo”. The SEC said at the time they were investigating the tweet, but did not take any further action.

Sparring with politicians

Lawmakers are another favourite target of Musk’s.

In 2021, he took aim at a proposal by Democrats to tax the net wealth of billionaires, known as a billionaires tax.

“Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you,” he tweeted.

When Bernie Sanders, the 81-year-old senator and scourge of the billionaire class, tweeted his support for the plan, Musk responded: “I keep forgetting that you’re still alive.”

Musk’s ‘dumb’ takes on the Covid pandemic

During the height of the pandemic, Musk used his enormous platform on Twitter to cast doubt on vaccines and show his disapproval for workplace closures that affected Tesla production.

“The coronavirus panic is dumb,” Musk tweeted in March 2020.

While the US had only reported small number of deaths at the time, the country has since suffered more than one million deaths.

The tweet brought ever more furious responses as the Covid death toll grew.

Doubling down, Musk tweeted a few days later that “kids are essentially immune” from the virus. More than 1500 children under 18 have died of the virus in the US, according to the CDC.

Many of his Covid takes have aged terribly, none more than when he predicted cases would be “close to zero” by the end of April 2020.

Dogecoin booster

Musk is a big fan of cryptocurrency and has used Twitter to boost his favourite coins, and in particular Dogecoin.

He promised to take Dogecoin to the moon, literally, by placing it on a SpaceX shuttle, one of many jokey memes that sent the price of the crypto soaring.

Hate for Bill Gates

Musk has had a volatile relationship with his fellow tech billionaire Bill Gates, and it came to a head after the Microsoft founder revealed he had shorted Tesla stock, on the expectation that it was overpriced.

“In case u need to lose a boner fast,” Musk tweeted in April, with an unflattering photo of Gates next to an emoji of a pregnant man.

The tweet earned him 1.1m likes in 48 hours.

Anti-trans statements

“Pronouns suck,” Musk tweeted in July 2020, in an apparent attack on the use of pronouns by members of the LGBT+ community and others.

His comments, which some argued were transphobic, were widely condemned and forced Tesla’s founder to note that his company was number one for LGBT+ employees on the Corporate Equality Index.

“I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare,” he said in a subsequent tweet. Hundreds of anti-trans and anti-LGBT+ bills introduced have been introduced by state level Republicans in the US between 2021 and 2022.

Bromance with Kanye West

When Kanye West announced he was running for President in July 2020, Elon Musk was quick to offer his “full support.”

Elon Musk tweeted that Kanye West had his ‘full support’ for his US presidential bid
Elon Musk tweeted that Kanye West had his ‘full support’ for his US presidential bid (Twitter)

He quickly reversed course when someone pointed out West would be running on an anti-abortion platform.

“We may have more differences of opinion than I anticipated,” Musk said in a follow up tweet. The exchange has since been deleted.

Elon Musk tweets his support for Kanye West after the rapper made antisemitic remarks. He later deleted it
Elon Musk tweets his support for Kanye West after the rapper made antisemitic remarks. He later deleted it (Twitter)

When Kanye began spouting antisemitic statements in October, Musk tweeted a meme in support of his friend, before later deleting it also.

The ‘pedo guy’ controversy

In 2018, Musk made a derogatory reference to a British diver who was trying to help save a Thai soccer team trapped in a cave.

Vern Unsworth helped to extract the boys and their coach in a dangerous mission that captivated the world’s attention. He sued Musk for $190m, arguing that the tweet had was defamatory and had damaged his reputation.

After a four day trial in December 2019, a federal jury in Los Angeles ruled that Musk had not defamed the diver.

Musk and population decline

One of Musk’s favourite recurring themes is the dangers of a declining global population, and he says it’s behind his desire to build a human colony on Mars.

Experts disagree with him on this. But he also used the topic to make light of reports in July that he had twins with an executive at his Neuralink business, at around the same time his second child with the pop star Grimes was born.

“Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis,” he tweeted.

Freelance diplomacy

Musk’s recent foray into global diplomacy saw him draw the wrath of Ukrainians for tweets urging Ukraine to seek a negotiated solution to Russia’s invasion and relinquish control of Crimea.

The poll suggesting measures to solve the heightening situation in Ukraine earned a swift rebuke from President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Which @elonmusk do you like more?” he wrote along with the options: “One who supports Ukraine” and “one who supports Russia.”

Musk then threatened to pull his Starlink satellites offering a vital internet connection to Ukraine out of service, before making an abrupt u-turn after widespread criticism.

Musk then went on to compliment Russian president Vladimir Putin’s close ally Dmitry Medvedev for trolling UK prime minister Liz Truss’s exit from office.

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