Nobody has done more to disprove the notion that billionaires are special, genius visionaries than Elon Musk. For a man who considers himself a staunch capitalist, the South African heir to Errol Musk and all-around embarrassment sure loves to be publicly owned. Even when he tries to get in on the joke, it has the air of an annoying younger brother pretending he can kick it with kids twice his size.
Fresh from getting rid of the “w” in the Twitter sign and taking away any and all sense of trustworthiness from blue checkmarks, he’s now changed his Twitter handle to “Harry Bōlz,” once again underlining why he shouldn’t be trusted to tie his own shoelaces, let alone run a company. Well, that, and the fact he keeps losing money at an unprecedented rate, uses social media to settle personal scores in a petty way, and is a bigot.
The childish testicle pun matches his recent attempt at what one can only assume is a joke about breasts, even though the word “titter” already has an established meaning. This is all par for the course with Musk, who seems intent on reliving his sad childhood and reimagining himself as one of the popular kids. Sadly for him, no amount of money can change the past: he is and always will be a loser – and not just in a social sense, seeing as he holds the record for the largest amount of money lost thanks to his Twitter shenanigans. But none of this has stopped him from trying to get in on the joke, which would be an impressive level of perseverance if it wasn’t so cringey.
If this was just another case of a rich kid desperately trying to get the world’s (daddy’s) attention, it wouldn’t be worthy of a news story. But, thanks to the insane way our global economic system works, Musk finds himself in charge of several large and important companies. So, as it turns out, his little jokes can often have huge — potentially criminal — consequences.
Since the blue check became all but meaningless, there have been some pretty hilarious satirical tweets from accounts impersonating famous people and brands. Some have been as educational as they are well-aimed, like the below post that was supposedly from Chiquita Bananas:
Not many people know that the innocent-seeming fruit company once operated under the name United Fruits, where they (in conjunction with various U.S. government organizations) orchestrated a coup in Guatemala, causing the brutal deaths of thousands and misery for millions more. All because Guatemalan people wanted to control their own land that United Fruits owned, but weren’t using.
There was further social commentary from some parodies, like this golden tweet from an account impersonating pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly that took aim at the wildly high price of life-saving insulin in the U.S.:
And then there were the out-and-out jokes, like the legend who turned Rudy Guiliani into a thirst account that would shame even the most egregious NSFW subreddits.
While it’s easy to laugh at all of this, the fact is that Twitter was once genuinely a useful place to get up-to-date breaking news from trusted sources. This was especially true in the global south and other developing nations, where the power of the social media network was often utilized to spread news, find sources for stories, and give out life-saving advice in an effective and far-reaching manner. That’s all basically been ruined thanks to Musk’s ego and inability to run a company.
The Tesla baron’s blasé attitude to all of this showcases just why he’s unfit to hold any position of power, even if the money he inherited from his dad (and, to be fair to him, invested well) now gives him an outsized level of influence compared to his intellect. Add in his baying army of tech bros and teenage boys who treat everything he says as gospel, and you have the recipe for a mini dictator who makes Beavis and Butthead look like intellectual titans. But, for now, it seems we’re as stuck with Musk as his brain is stuck in his adolescent years, so if you want to keep using Twitter to search for news, jobs, or anything else, you’ll just have to be careful.