Variety

10 reasons why Elon Musk should uninstall Twitter and throw away his phone

Amrutha PagadNovember 16, 2021 | 16:35 IST

Elon Musk should probably just throw away his phone and uninstall Twitter, instead of throwing away Tesla shares and other physical belongings to make a point. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s childish comments on Twitter cost the electric car-maker and its shareholders dearly. Here are 10 times Elon Musk and Tesla got in trouble for the former's tweets. 

1. MUSK VS BERNIE SHOWDOWN OUTS TESLA FROM US$ 1 TRILLION CLUB

Tesla became the 6th company in the US to reach the $1 trillion mark in October. But Elon Musk’s Sunday Twitter war with Congressman Bernie Sanders on 'tax the rich' debate cost the car-maker some of the gains. We still can’t understand why the world’s richest man would be so averse to paying taxes.

2. US$ 162 MILLION LAWSUIT: ONLINE MISTAKES COME BACK TO BITE  

Investment bank JP Morgan sued Tesla and Elon Musk for $162 million for the latter’s 2018 tweets, claiming that the car-maker defrauded them. The issue began when Elon Musk, in 2018, tweeted that he would make Tesla private, resulting in volatile share prices. 

3. ELON MUSK REMOVED AS BOARD CHAIR OF TESLA

The infamous 2018 tweet also cost Elon Musk his position as the Tesla board chairperson. The Securities and Exchange Commission said that Musk’s ‘going-private’ tweet was market-moving.

4. SELLING STOCKS BASED ON TWITTER POLL

We don’t know if Elon Musk is winning the argument on the tax-the-rich debate. Before Tesla lost more gains after Bernie controversy, he had lost some more when he hit out at another Congressman, Ron Wyden. Musk let a Twitter poll decide whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla shares and well, the poll said he should. And there went the Tesla share prices plummeting. 

5. LOL? ELON MUSK’S TWEETS COST HIM ‘WORLD’S RICHEST MAN’ TITLE

In February, Elon Musk slipped to the second spot on Bloomberg’s richest people list. It was mostly due to a dip in Tesla’s value triggered by Musk’s tweet that Bitcoin prices were rising too much too soon. This comment came just days after Tesla added its Bitcoin assets to the balance sheet. We wonder whether Musk hates his own Tesla?

Anyway, Elon Musk is back to the number one spot as the word’s richest person.

6. LOW ENOUGH? MUSK WIPES OFF $14 BILLION FROM TESLA VALUE 

Elon Musk in 2020 tweeted that Tesla’s share prices were a bit too high. And poof, $14 billion gone from Tesla’s market value. It may not have bothered Musk to lose a few billions but other shareholders were not happy. 

7. MUSK’S DUMB AND DANGEROUS COVID TWEETS

The billionaire genius Elon Musk fuelled Covid ignorance in the US and the world with his tweets. From calling the Covid panic ‘dumb’, claiming falsely that children are immune, criticising stay-at-home orders, to wrongly predicting a decline in cases in the US, Musk led his 63.8 million followers down a dangerous path. 

8. CALLS RESCUE DIVER ‘PEDO GUY’

Elon Musk was sued for defamation by a British cave diver for the billionaire’s ‘pedo guy’ comment. Musk won the suit and wasn’t charged for the damages. But wonder what gives Musk the right to falsely brand a person pedophile, when he himself hung out with Ghislaine Maxwell, who stands accused of sex-trafficking in the Jeffrey Epstein case. 

9. THE TIME HE SAID KANYE WEST (NOW 'YE') FOR PRESIDENT

Elon Musk has quite the following and influence, no doubt. But if his influence wins the American rapper ‘Ye’ the position of the US President, not many are likely to appreciate it. 

10. PRONOUNS SUCK BUT NOT CRYPTIC NAMES

Elon Musk says he supports trans people, but can’t understand the pronouns. What about the crazy names of his children? 

We don’t know if Elon Musk thinks he’s the billionaire bad boy troll and an incarnation of Tony Stark, but it’s worth a thought about who’s really getting trolled.

(PS: Do you think Musk is probably to Tesla what Donald Trump was to the US?)

Last updated: November 16, 2021 | 16:44
IN THIS STORY
Read more!
Recommended Stories