Instead of using $44 billion to, we don’t know, help end world hunger or homelessness, Elon Musk has decided to buy Twitter and use it to spread homophobic misinformation about a home invasion/assault victim.
The richest and loneliest man in the world’s Twitter acquisition has been an all-around circus; the first hours of his reign saw an uptick in racial slurs and firings of vital top officials at the company. All that mess is now being followed by the wealth-hoarder disseminating a baseless and homophobic far-right conspiracy about the recent violent attack on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi‘s husband, Paul Pelosi.
Hillary Clinton shared an LA Times piece early Saturday morning outlining the far-right conspiracies David DePape had spread before attacking Pelosi.
The former first lady spoke out against the right’s propagation of these ideas, writing, “It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result“:
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
The Republican Party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories. It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result. As citizens, we must hold them accountable for their words and the actions that follow.https://t.co/MQor4NDFeE
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 29, 2022
Related: Elon Musk finally speaks about his estranged trans daughter and of course he’s gotta be an a**hole
In a now-deleted tweet, Elon responded to her statement, writing, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye” and sharing an article from the Santa Monica Observer. The article’s headline? “The Awful Truth: Paul Pelosi Was Drunk Again, And In a Dispute With a Male Prostitute Early Friday Morning”
Yes, really:
unreal pic.twitter.com/LF3XRE8Wsw
— Christian Vanderbrouk 🇺🇸🇺🇦🌻 (@UrbanAchievr) October 30, 2022
The writers took a fake report of the attacker being found in his underwear (along with an unrelated snippet of the police call transcript) and made up a wild story about Pelosi and DePape being gay lovers. Somehow, Elon bought it.
The publication has been deemed by fake-news watchdog site Media Bias/Fact Check a questionable source, “based on the routine publication of false and misleading information and the use of poor sources.”
Though the site rules that the Observer “may be very untrustworthy and should be fact-checked,” Elon did no such due diligence. Instead, he let this ugly, homophobic conspiracy loose to his 112 million followers. His tweet was shared at least a reported 24,000 times before being deleted.
Instead of admitting any wrongdoing, Musk is getting defensive and attacking other publications at will:
new twitter owner tweets out (and then deletes) a homophobic article riddled with far-right conspiracy theories from a site known to traffic in fake news to his millions of followers, responds with this: pic.twitter.com/4mjBPM9Isi
— Marlow Stern (@MarlowNYC) October 31, 2022
And who’s going to check him? Certainly not the CEO or Legal Policy officer, both of whom he fired the second he took over.
A board member maybe? No way! He just fired all of them too and named himself “Sole Director” of the platform.
On top of that, there’s no telling how many figures will even stick around to counter his BS when he’s reportedly planning to charge all verified users $240 annually for verification.
This new Twitter world order can only end badly, but hopefully just for this one man.
Neoprene
Huh. Paul Pelosi gettin a little dude action on the side. Seems to make sense.
Kangol2
You really did just vomit that crap up, didn’t you? Clean it up and pray no right-wing wacko ever breaks into your house and comes after you!
Neoprene
Kangy – Don’t worry about me, Kangy. I have way better security at my home than the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Who woulda thunk it? But I do, happily! That dude woulda got his arse handed to him before he got w/in a 100 yards of me. Bring it on, R-wingers!
LumpyPillows
Neoprene – there are so many things wrong with everything you wrote.
Neoprene
Lump – Do tell, dear!
Neoprene
BTW – 911 for multi-millionaires? Talk about amateur hour.
Bosch
Do your parents know you’re on the internet this late?
Cam
Please make it less obvious that this account is run by a troll farm that just sits and waits for a new post so it can jump in first and push out Russian / Republican troll lies.
Neoprene
CAM – 3
Den
I think everyone here can agree that you are worthless scum.
You have no place in civil society.
You’d likely make the same nasty comments had it been your own father or mother attacked.
Den
“Please make it less obvious that this account is run by a troll farm that just sits and waits for a new post so it can jump in first and push out Russian / Republican troll lies.”
I doubt this buffoon is a Russian troll. Simply another right winger lacking in empathy, intellect, social skills, self awareness, or any of the other things that make primates human. And he is so dull as to think himself clever. Probably the only thing that gives him pleasure is the taste of republican politicians feces in his mouth.
DBMC
@Neoprene
You’re always finding new ways to be despicable.
CNY1983
YICK! twitter who? im OD’d on it all.
LumpyPillows
Can we cancel Elon? Please.
inbama
At the very least suspend his own account for a week.
RIGay
Tells ya what – Don’t EVER quote Twitter to me as your source of information. Period.
Cam
Musk is not a good businessman. He bought into Tesla, he didn’t start it. He has since decimated their market by attacking 70% of their customer base. He tried to back out of the Twitter deal then when he realized he would lose in court had to put other financing together because he couldn’t afford the deal with out selling off most of his Tesla stock since he caused their price to plunge.
Now he’s causing Twitter value to drop even more. This will be fun to watch. Are all Trump supporters almost as bad in business as Trump???
Den
Tacky, self absorbed rich folks always seem to magnify their self absorption and lack of class. Elon is not that different from Trump really. He just thinks he is. They share the same lack of engagement with others, the same mean spiritedness. Musk’s difference is that he wants people to think he is benevolent and trying to save humanity, though he cannot really manage to pull the fiction off. Trump, with a few exceptions, could not give a shit what people think, he just wants power and attention.
DBMC
So, if Elon does what he says Twitter will be COMPLETELY anti-semites, homophobes and misogynists, rather than just mostly like it is now.
Except, they’ll all have to pay $20.00.
rover4x
like he said, he is biting the fingers who feeding him on little birdy.