Elon Musk will not solve humanity’s problems. If anything, he will worsen them with his elitist class warfare against populations foreign and domestic and his $44B personal propaganda network that purposefully accelerates animosity and social division. If you pay Elon every month to use Twitter, you contribute to the Billionaire Mind Virus, regardless of your excuse. The following is an evolving post about a notable social network and the smug juvenile troll who bought it.
Images in this post were created using NightCafe’s AI art generator.
Elon defends a neo-Nazi mass murderer
Elon wants you to know that it couldn’t have been a neo-Nazi who shot up a mall in his home state of Texass. “This is either the weirdest story ever or a very bad psyop!”, he exclaimed. Is it the weirdest story ever because neo-Nazis aren’t bad people? Is it the weirdest story ever because a neo-Nazi would never shoot a guy named Kyu Song Cho (and his family) or a woman named Aishwarya Thatikonda? If this was a “psyop”, what was the point? Was the government trying to give neo-Nazis a bad reputation by blaming one of America’s countless mass shootings on a neo-Nazi?
Elon seems to believe that white nationalists need to have lily white skin and a name like “John Smith”. Perhaps this has something to do with his upbringing in an apartheid regime. More likely, however, it is explained by Elon’s dismal understanding of people (e.g., fields such as sociology, anthropology, and [non-famous people] human history). If anything good can come out of this latest Texass bullet festival, it’s that more Americans will learn how fascist ideologies don’t always attract the palest among us (look at Carlos Lehder and Enrique Tarrio). Not that Elon cares about the truth: it’s a feature (not a bug) of his billionaire mind virus project.
Elon’s latest red herring
March 2023. While Elon’s $44B communications hobby is now a hot mess and a security risk for its users, the centibillionaire seems to believe that Twitter’s recommendations algorithm is what they care about. Seriously? Once again, we see how out of touch this patient zero of the Billionaire Mind Virus is when it comes to understanding what people want. His perception is partly based upon one of his dumb, poorly worded polls that he mistakenly believes represents the will of his sleazy public square. But let’s not give him too much credit for trying to appear democratic: his move to open source the code is more based upon his slapdash, uninformed political leanings.
And like most of his ideas for Twitter, this latest gift to humanity doesn’t make sense. According to people who actually study the technical side of social media (i.e., not the corporate overlords like Musk), opening up the algorithms will provide a fake transparency without providing solid contextual answers. Worse, it’s an invitation to much more efficient spammers and fraudsters. Maybe if the platform becomes an even worse experience for users like David Dayen who have already been abused by Musk’s failures, they will leave. (Good people like Dayen should have left already; too many leftists are behaving as useful idiots by collaborating in the billionaire mind virus project.)
Short-term thinking: the best Martian quality
March 2023. A glaring example of the billionaire mind virus: Only little people need to pay rent and other bills. As reported in the Financial Times (rated the world’s most important business newspaper), Musk’s “transition team” of trusted lieutenants decided they didn’t want to pay Twitter’s vendors, landlords, and partners. It’s all very short-term thinking, said a former senior staffer. Short-term thinking, of course, is a desirable quality in someone who tells us he wants to send humanity to colonize Mars.
This update in the Financial Times also reminded us of how Elon values people and humanity: in an ideal Muskian workplace, an employee would sleep at the office with their spouse and newborn child, as did executive Steve Davis. Maybe this is Elon’s version of “spending more time with family”? We can guess how little time he spends with his own children (and we needn’t wonder why one of them disowned him).
AI generated image of a smug centibillionaire troll
The Idiot Troll reveals his true self again
March 2023. Who is Elon Musk? This question can best be answered in an example of how he treats other members of his species. Elon mocked a disabled man because he felt entitled to do so. When confronted about it, he blamed other people for his actions (the misunderstanding was “based on things I was told that were untrue”, said Elon). Similar to the 45th POTUS, nothing is ever his fault. He never took responsibility for advertisers leaving Twitter, which happened mainly because he invited the worst humans back to the platform and eviscerated its security and oversight.
When you think of someone who is going to “save humanity” by colonizing another planet, you definitely want an uninformed troll who blames other people for his own failures, right? This mocking incident also illustrates how Elon approaches politics, social issues, and other humans in general: very lazily. Elon exhibits shockingly little understanding of most things (and people) outside of his narrow disciplines. He probably should stick to what he knows rather than spreading fake news to many millions of Earthlings. Musk is in truth the antithesis of the polymath that he is made out to be by his simps, stans, fanboys, and other adherents of the Billionaire Mind Virus.
Elon endorses Twitter as a good place for the worst people
February 2023. What we do know about Elon is that he likes to make money by treading on people, whether it be by crushing the ability of workers to organize at work or by pushing fake news that fits his shallow political biases. Now we know he also makes money by hosting neo-Nazis, men who enjoy abusing women, and quacks who get rich by pushing what the lay public perceives as good science. Twitter is for losers. Yes there are some good people who communicate with Twitter, but why would you legitimize the Billionaire Mind Virus by participating in it?
You don’t need to be a genius to figure out that Elon is pouring gasoline on the fires of American polarization, misinformation, and disinformation, but an actual genius reminds us that Elon is doing exactly that. Gates is tangibly helping our species survive (if you’re a conspiracy nutter, you believe the opposite, of course) while Musk indulges in childish fantasies about being the King of Mars.