Back to the most striking tweets of the richest man in the world
The real Musk
"That's me," Elon Musk tweeted on June 4, 2010, to cut short the flood of messages from an impostor: "Please disregard previous tweets as this was about someone impersonating me :)"
Until 2017, he remained relatively low-key, posting less than 1,000 tweets a year, according to data compiled by visualcapitalist.com.
The rate of messages then intensified to around 3,000 tweets per year since 2019.
The multi-faceted entrepreneur speaks above all about Tesla (electric cars) and SpaceX (spaceflight), then about his start-ups, such as Neuralink (brain implants) and The Boring Company (tunnels), but also about his centers of interests.
"pedo guy"
On July 15, 2018, he called British caver Vernon Unsworth a "pedo guy" in a tweet, which was later deleted.
Vernon Unsworth accused the billionaire of having made a "publicity stunt" by sending a submarine of his design to rescue children trapped in a cave in Thailand.
This will earn Elon Musk a defamation lawsuit in a Los Angeles court.
He will be acquitted in December 2019.
The anger of the stock market policeman
On August 7, 2018, he announced that he had the appropriate funding to withdraw Tesla from Wall Street at $420 per share, without providing proof.
As a result, the US stock market regulator, the SEC, ordered him to hand over the chairmanship of Tesla's board of directors, pay a $20 million fine and subsequently demanded that his tweets directly related to the activity of Tesla are pre-approved by a competent lawyer.
Elon Musk challenged this latest measure in court in early March.
Jokes
“At least 50% of my tweets are written on the throne”, declares in November 2021 the leader who loves questionable jokes.
In October, he tweeted that he would like to open a university called "Texas Institute of Technology & Science", to the hilarity of his many fans, because the acronym, "TITS", means "tits".
A few weeks later, a Tesla employee filed a complaint alleging a "culture of sexual harassment" within the California factory.
Survey
On November 6, 2021, Elon Musk launches a poll to find out whether or not he should sell 10% of his Tesla shares.
About 58% of the 3.5 million voters respond in favor.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the SEC has opened an investigation to determine whether the boss and his brother Kimbal committed insider trading around the sale of shares.
The price of the title had fallen in the wake of the survey.
Crypto
In May 2021, he announced that Tesla would accept payments in bitcoin, the most famous cryptoasset, but then backtracked, citing the environmental impact of mining (a technique for creating cryptocurrencies).
He also uses Twitter to praise Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency originally a parody, helping to boost the price.
Duel against Putin
"I challenge Vladimir Putin in a man-to-man fight. The stake is Ukraine", launched Elon Musk on March 14, three weeks after the start of the Russian offensive.
"Do you accept this fight?", He added in another message, in Russian, addressed to the Kremlin.
cow love
Elon Musk loves to criticize Twitter.
He chained derogatory remarks in early April, before announcing his intention to acquire the platform.
For example, he wondered if the social network was "dying", mentioning accounts that were very followed but not very active and proposed to "convert the headquarters of Twitter in San Francisco into a shelter for the homeless since no one going anyway."
His tweets have since disappeared from his profile.
He also recently published the results of a survey where he asked his subscribers if they believed that the company respected freedom of expression "rigorously".
More than 70% of the 2 million voters answered "no".
"Is a new platform necessary?" Also asked the businessman.
© 2022 AFP