Tech

Did Elon Musk do Donald Trump with Tweets?


Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, can move markets, cause panic, distract, and offend with just one tweet.

Using repetition, deflection, and schoolyard taunts, Elon Musk can move markets, confound, distract, and offend with a single tweet – evoking so many of the former President’s tactics. Donald Trump.

Their shared approach to online communication and nimble personalities invite stark comparisons, with similarities even more apparent when the Tesla Inc chief. and the richest person in the world turned to politics and voted first Republican.

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Musk’s fascination with Twitter Inc. inspired him to bid $44 billion for the company, a deal that would give him even greater influence over a digital ecosystem where he commands unsurpassed power. . That could be especially helpful as federal officials pose a growing challenge to his empire.

Musk has indicated he would welcome Trump back to the social platform, lifting the suspension that began when the former president violated the site’s policies with tweets surrounding the attack on May 6. 1 in 2021 to the US Capitol. But that lenient treatment – and Musk’s recent right-leaning political display – is no sign that he will support Trump in the 2024 US presidential race.

“I am still undecided at this point,” he said last week at the Qatar Economic Forum in an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait. That demigod comes days after he tweeted that he was leaning in favor of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. His careful response to a public audience of investors proves he can turn off his liberal, provocative online personality when needed – a restraint Trump could never fully muster. .

‘Regional flooding’

For example, Twitter has tried to improve what it calls the “health” of conversation on its website – by downgrading harassing voices and offering prompts to urge users to watch. review offensive replies – the platform still rewards provoking behavior through retweeting, liking, replying and following. Banning those who exceed the limit from using their services, including Trump, has failed to soften those dynamics and has left the space for Musk to be the center of attention.

Musk’s presence on Twitter is so strong that even his absence is noticeable: He hasn’t tweeted since June 21, leaving his admirers to rely on online speculation about him. billionaire’s residence. Usually, though, Musk caters to what his audience wants, emulating and adapting Trump’s strategy to build his fan base and brand.

Inga Kristina Trauthig, a senior research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, said both Musk and Trump were effective at “flooding the area.” They consistently offer candid opinions, she said, whether it’s Musk’s recent attempt to reduce the global birth rate or Trump’s frequent claims of a political conspiracy. Deep water is against his agenda.

Flooding the area is an approach popularized by Steve Bannon, one-time Trump political strategist. In 2018, Bannon told author Michael Lewis that “the real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the area with damn things.”

With this kind of onslaught, accuracy is less important than endurance.

“Their stories are not nuanced. They are not complicated,” said Trauthig, whose research focuses on how emerging technologies are used in political communication.

Those simple stories often suggest that these men are the victims of politically motivated attacks, often with bad news stories. For example, Musk speculated in May that Democrats would launch a “dirty campaign” against him for his support of the Republican Party – and the next day, Insider reported. accused sexual misconduct allegations against him, which he dismissed as a “soldier work” designed to “interfere with the acquisition of Twitter.”

Trump’s social media habits have particularly high stakes consequences, with his tweets used to disseminate disinformation and try to overturn his failed re-election war. . However, Musk’s mandate has a certain importance, shaping the investment decisions and worldview of his members.

Both found huge online reach, with Trump reaching 88.9 million Twitter followers before he was kicked off the platform and Musk counting around 100.3 million followers.

Musk’s Twitter acumen evokes Trump in another way: He has a penchant for capturing the daily news cycle and rearranging it. For Trump, tweets are often plain media commentary — he watches TV news voraciously and enjoys mocking Oscar and NBA ratings. Others, however, were huge news: He fired his secretary of state by Twitter and even tweeted about his own Covid-19 case.

“I call Twitter a ‘typewriter,'” Trump said in 2019. He recalled a tweet claiming that Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a post that went against longstanding US positions. “I go: ‘Watch this.’ Boom, I hit it and within two seconds, “We have breaking news.”

Musk’s tweets could scupper talk about Tesla’s plunging stock price and his Twitter deal — or any attempt to get out of it. For example, on a Sunday in June, he tweeted Father’s Day wishes, saying he was still buying Dogecoin and that he felt “tricked” every time he drank LaCroix carbonated water.

Sow trust

Both men instinctively use the platform and the subject matter will thrive there. Trump has amplified conservative media outlets to fuel the feuds that underlie the US culture war. Musk, between announcements about his company, weighed in on remote work, video games, and media, which he accused of being overly negative. He and Trump have sought to attract followers that make them trust and distrust mainstream news outlets.

Those who closely watch every word. Musk tweets cryptically, such as in April when he tweeted a space for a word followed by “is Night” – sparking a flurry of speculation and controversy as to whether the first word is “bid” or not, indicating that he was planning to make a bid offer to Twitter. Trump has become less irritable, but his tweets are still heavily dissected, such as his infamous unfinished post about “the source of negative press news.”

Musk, Tesla and Trump representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Notorious Tweets

However, their online impulsivity is sometimes spectacular. Trump lost his Twitter speaker in January 2021 in the aftermath of the deadly Capitol spill, when the company determined that his tweets violated its policies on glorifying violence. The extent of Trump’s involvement in the rally is still coming to light. A former aide testified Tuesday that Trump called for security to let armed people join the rally, asking him to join them at the Capitol and grab the wheel of the president’s SUV to redirect protests.

Musk got into trouble with a 2018 tweet in which he falsely claimed to have arranged the financing to take Tesla private. That led to a settlement with the Securities & Exchange Commission, in which he and Tesla each agreed to pay $20 million in civil penalties via tweet.

More recently, Musk’s own workforce has joined his online stage. On June 16, SpaceX fired the employees behind an open letter condemning the behavior of Musk, its CEO, as “a constant source of distraction and embarrassment to us, especially in recent weeks.”

If Musk’s acquisition of Twitter ends, Trump has said he won’t return to the site, pledging to stick with making statements on Truth Social, his own platform.

However, the lure of regaining the reach and cache of his Twitter account might prove too hard to resist.





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