Musk has socials in a serious lather

YEARS ago, Victor Kiam liked his Remington shaver so much he bought the company. Now one of Twitter’s most prolific and controversial users, Elon Musk, has bought his favourite social media platform.

That’s right. The man who admits to sending his most abusive and crazed tweets from the toilet is now the owner of the company.

Musk revolutionised the electriccar industry and privatised space. Now he’s is taking on a social media platform favoured by bullies and braggards and promising to make it even more loose. God help us all.

Last week, Musk walked into the company’s headquarters carrying a porcelain sink because he wanted his new role to “sink in”.

Musk says the new Twitter will be “warm and wonderful”.

“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” he said in a statement to advertisers.

But within hours of taking over, the head of Twitter’s legal policy, trust, and safety unit was fired (what does that tell you?) and the CEO and CFO had been escorted out the door.

Musk is all for free speech on the platform but he did pay $44 billion for the company, which makes it very expensive speech indeed.

I’ve long thought I needed saving from Twitter, which I’ve always found to be a bastion of bullying and an echo chamber for self-important politicians and journalists.

But I’m starting to think we need saving from Musk as well, who now calls himself “Chief Twit” and regularly sends pooh emojis to famous people he disagrees with.

He may be the richest man but he’s also one of the weirdest.

He wants people to have lots of sex to help populate the planet and is doing his own part by fathering ten children, including one called X AE AXII and another called Exa Dark Siderael.

So, what can we expect from a man who managed to sell $2 million of a perfume called Burnt Hair, which he called the “essence of repugnant desire”. And the man who raised money for his tunnelling firm called the Boring Company by selling $500 flame throwers?

Musk has moved to reassure shareholders that the platform won’t end up a “a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”. The fear is that doctored news, fake tweets and bullying will proliferate under the Chief Twit who’s known for doctoring news, sending fake tweets and bullying others.

It’s very likely that under Musk, Twitter will hit a new low.

In recent years in tweets Musk has played down the severity of Covid, compared Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Hitler and joked about nuking the planet Mars.

He also told US Senator Bernie Sanders, “I keep forgetting you’re still alive”, and falsely called a British diver who rescued the Thai cave kids a “pedo guy” because the diver disagreed with his plan to send in a submarine.

This is the level of debate we can expect from the new boss of Twitter who thinks video games are real, believes he used to be an alien and wants to colonise Mars.

Musk is also not known for his political nous. He once tweeted a solution to bring about UkraineRussia peace which involved Ukraine handing over occupied territory to the Russians. Nailed it!

It’s no wonder Musk has been called everything from an “absurdist in chief”, to a “brilliant jerk” and a “spoilt brat in a diaper”.

He’s now the chief brat in charge of a hugely influential media company with more than 330 million regular users.

There is no doubt that Twitter will be looser and wilder under Musk, who is anti-union, doesn’t believe in whistle blowers and fires people who disagree with him. What a pity he didn’t buy a shaver company instead.