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Elon Musk suspends journalist Twitter accounts, sells Tesla shares, evades questions on Spaces: Rough week

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Amrutha Pagad
Amrutha PagadDec 16, 2022 | 10:24

Elon Musk suspends journalist Twitter accounts, sells Tesla shares, evades questions on Spaces: Rough week

Twitter suspends accounts of journalists, Musk sells Tesla shares. GIF: DailyO

Elon Musk seems to have suffered a rough week. From getting booed by an audience at an event to losing the number one spot in the world's richest list, things around Musk don't seem to be in great shape. In the latest, Musk's Twitter has suspended the accounts of prominent journalists who covered him and he has also sold off more shares at Tesla.  

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The one about Twitter:

  • Twitter suspended the accounts of at least 8 prominent journalists covering Elon Musk and Twitter as subjects. 

  • It seems like their accounts were suspended for sharing information regarding Jack Sweeney, who tracks the private jets of several influential people around the world including that of Elon Musk. 

  • Elon Musk claimed the journalists' accounts were suspended for "doxxing", but when he was challenged by the journalists in a Twitter Space, the billionaire was unable to answer and left the Space. 
  • Twitter has suspended the Twitter account, @ElonJet, belonging to Sweeney for tracking Elon Musk's private jets. 
  • Musk has been critical of Sweeney for tracking his private jet's whereabouts and once even offered thousands of dollars to shut down the business. 
  • Twitter's update to its privacy policy bans sharing "live location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes".
  • Elon Musk also implied that Jack Sweeney's account was used by a "crazy stalker" who followed his 2-year-old son and jumped on the bonnet of the car that was ferrying him. 
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  • The entire account-banning fiasco seems to run counter to his free-speech absolutist claims. 

  • Now, Elon Musk is posting Twitter polls after Twitter polls asking whether the accounts that were suspended for "doxxing" him should be reinstated. 
  • Not just suspending accounts, Twitter has been busy not allowing users to share links to the rival platform, Mastodon.
  • On the other hand, The Wall Street Journal reported that visits to Twitter's ad manager fell by 85% in November compared to last year. 
  • Other than employee layoffs, Twitter under Elon Musk is also reportedly cutting down on office rent among other things. 
  • Twitter has to pay a debt of $1 billion yearly as part of the acquisition. Reports say banks are already preparing to book losses against the debt this quarter. 

The one about Tesla: 

  • Elon Musk sold more shares in Tesla, documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on December 15 showed. 
  • Musk sold 22 million shares in Tesla worth $3.9 billion. 
  • The shares were sold on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. 
  • So far, Musk has sold nearly $40 billion worth of shares in Tesla this year alone, despite announcing that he won't be selling any more of Tesla shares twice this year - once in April and the second time in August. 
  • Reportedly, much of it has gone towards his obsession with Twitter, which seems to be doing worse than it ever was. 
  • What's worse is that Tesla's stock price isn't doing great either, in fact, it is one of the worst-performing stocks in the market for an EV car maker. 
  • Tesla's share price closed at $156.80 on Thursday, the lowest in the past two years. 
  • Tesla is also not doing great in the market as it struggles with demand, factory output disruption in Shanghai and investigations into the many cases of crashes. 
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  • One of Elon Musk' self-proclaimed "fanboy" and third largest individual shareholder of Tesla, KoGuan Leo, has made his ire known in several of his tweets - claiming that Musk abandoned Tesla. 

  • Regardless, Elon Musk still remains the biggest shareholder in Tesla with a 13.4% stake. 

The one about the world's richest index: 

  • Elon Musk climbed to the top of the world's richest index around September 2021 to become the world's richest man. 
  • However, the number one spot has now been taken by Louis Vuitton boss Bernard Arnault and family, not because Arnault's wealth increased substantially, but because Musk's wealth decreased drastically. 

To top it all off, Elon Musk got a real-time update on his popularity rating.

Musk was at a comedy show in San Francisco last Sunday with controversial comedian Dave Chappelle. When Chappelle introduced Musk asking the crowd to "make some noise", the Twitter boss came up waving his hands in the air expecting raucous applause. That didn't happen. Instead he was booed… for 10 minutes… VERY LOUDLY.

Last updated: December 16, 2022 | 10:30
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