Have you ever met someone who just can’t read the room well enough to stop making jokes? Well, there’s seemingly a growing number of people who think Elon Musk might just be the tech industry’s version of that person.
On Thursday, Musk reportedly showed up 10 minutes late via video call to a Q&A session for Twitter staff, where he said, among other things, that Twitter would need to cut its headcount. He also said that Twitter should help “civilization and consciousness,” that he would talk with advertisers to say, “Hey, let’s just make sure the ads are as entertaining as possible” and that he believes users should be allowed to say “some pretty outrageous things” on the platform as long as they aren’t illegal. Apparently, when he signed off, his profile picture was an image of hands in the shape of the number 69, according to a source in the call.
Then later, he got slapped with a US$258 billion lawsuit by a Dogecoin investor who claimed that “Musk used his pedestal as World’s Richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure and amusement.” The investor says that Musk hyped up the cryptocurrency only to turn around and watch it tumble. The complainant is asking for US$86 billion in damages – tripled – and for Dogecoin trading to be declared gambling under New York and federal law. Musk’s lawyers haven’t commented on the suit yet.
And then, if that wasn’t enough, employees at SpaceX, Musk’s rocket venture, are penning an open letter to the company’s executives that says that “Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” and demands the company separate from Musk’s personal brand. The letter also demands that all executives and leaders in the company be held accountable for inappropriate action, likely a response to Musk’s tweets denying and mocking allegations that he sexually harassed a flight attendant on a 2016 flight.
