Elon Musk Has Given Up On Twitter?
Is he busy counting his money?
This article is more than 2 years old
Elon Musk hasn’t tweeted for an entire week, leaving many to wonder where the usually prolific social media user has gone. While that might be normal for most people, it’s largely uncharacteristic for the billionaire who typically offers opinions on almost any topic via the micro-blogging platform. His habits as a serial tweeter have even caused legal issues in the past.
June 29th also marks Elon Musk’s 51st birthday which coincided with him reaching 100 million Twitter followers. Both events are something the Tesla boss would usually celebrate online, yet he’s nowhere to be seen. His last tweet was eight days ago and his last trip was on Friday, according to the ElonJet Twitter account, which tracks the billionaire’s private jet flight paths. This trip was for an interview with CleanTechnica reporter Johnna Crider at the Tesla Gigafactory in Austin, Texas.
Of the elite group of famous people with over 10 million Twitter followers, Elon Musk is the only prolific tweeter. But his social media usage changed on June 16th, according to Axios. That was the day an open letter signed by SpaceX employees surfaced online. The letter characterized his posts as a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment to the company. Some of the signatories were promptly fired. But the Tesla CEO’s tweeting slowed down, ceasing entirely after June 21st.
While everyone loves a good conspiracy theory, his absence may not be business-related at all. Like many of us, Elon Musk has taken social media breaks before. Shortly after the birth of his son, in 2020, the billionaire announced that he’d be off the platform for a while, only to return a few days later. And in 2019, he quit the micro-blogging site for three days after pondering the “good” of Twitter, Fortune reported at the time.
Though unannounced, this could be another hiatus for Elon Musk who has had a rough few weeks at Tesla. First, he insisted that all workers return to full-time hours. But after having a “super bad feeling” about the economy, he said 10% of the company’s workforce would be laid off, accusing his factories of wasting money. Then, following his return to the office mandate, managers at the billionaire’s Fremont complex told staff to go home because the company was unprepared to accommodate them.
Additionally, Elon Musk’s bid to purchase Twitter has appeared to take up a significant amount of his time in recent months. But the deal seems to be at a standstill while the CEO tries to examine the platform’s user data to determine the number of bot accounts on the site. According to experts, that data includes real-time information on the hundreds of millions of tweets sent every day. And will most likely require a team of experts and massive computing capacity to comb through it all.
Or perhaps the business mogul, worth $223 billion, is taking some much-needed downtime on an exotic island away from the noise he creates on social media. Since Elon Musk isn’t known for his self-control, he’ll probably be back on Twitter very soon.
