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A12 technology
Monday 7 noveMber 2022
Musk's past tweets reveal clues about

Twitter's new owner

people living in other areas
illegally annexed by Rus-
sia should vote on whether
Russia or Ukraine should
get control over the territo-
ries — a move that Ukraine
supporters said would re-
ward Russia for its illegal
aggression.
Just days after purchasing
Twitter Musk waded into
yet another firestorm when
he posted a link to an ar-
ticle advancing a bizarre
conspiracy theory about
(AP) – He may be good for free speech. He's said the attack on the husband
with rockets and electric he disagrees with the plat- of U.S. Speaker Nancy Pe-
cars, but don't turn to Elon form's decision to ban ex- losi. The article suggested
Musk for public health pre- President Donald Trump for that Paul Pelosi and his as-
dictions. inciting violence ahead of sailant were lovers, even
"Probably close to zero the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on though authorities said the
new cases in US too by end the U.S. Capitol. suspect confessed to tar-
of April," the world's richest As the CEO of Tesla and geting the speaker and did
man tweeted about COV- SpaceX, Musk uses his Twit- not know her husband.
ID-19 in March 2020, just as ter account to make busi- Musk later deleted the
the pandemic was ramp- ness announcements and tweet without explanation.
ing up. promote his enterprises. Musk has long used the
It's one of many tweets that He muses about technol- megaphone of his Twitter
offer a glimpse into the ogy and trade, but has account to punch back
mind of Twitter's new own- also posted jokes about at critics or people he op-
er and moderator in chief. women's breasts and once poses, such as when he
Playful, aggressive and compared Canada's prime attacked a diver working
sometimes reckless, Musk's minister to Hitler. He regu- to rescue boys trapped in
past tweets show how he larly weighs in on global a cave in Thailand by call-
has used social media to events, as he did in March ing him a "pedo," short for
tout his businesses, punch 2020 when he tweeted that pedophile. The diver had
back at critics and burnish "The coronavirus pandemic previously mocked Musk's
his brand as a brash bil- is dumb." proposal to use a sub to
lionaire who is unafraid to That same month, he rescue the boys. Musk, who
speak his mind. tweeted that children were won a defamation suit filed
Musk joined Twitter in 2009 largely immune from the vi- by the diver, later said he
and now has more than rus and predicted that cas- never intended "pedo" to
112 million followers — the es would soon disappear. be interpreted as "pedo-
third most of any account Musk has also used his Twit- phile."
after former president ter account to weigh in Earlier this year he criti-
Barack Obama and Ca- other big news events — cized the Twitter executive
nadian singer Justin Bieber. with mixed results. in charge of the platform's
He had long mused about This fall, Musk infuriated legal, policy and trust di-
purchasing the platform leaders in Ukraine when visions. In response to his
before the $ 44 billion deal he went on Twitter to float tweets about the execu-
was finalized last week. a potential peace deal. tive, many of Musk's follow-
Musk hasn't detailed the Under Musk's plan, Russia ers piled on with misogy-
changes he intends to would get to keep Crimea, nistic and racist attacks, in
make at Twitter, though which it seized from Ukraine addition to calls for Musk to
he wasted no time in mak- in 2014, and Ukraine would fire her when his purchase
ing widespread layoffs. have to drop its plans to of Twitter was approved.
But he has said he wants join NATO. Musk fired the executive
to make Twitter a haven Musk also suggested that on day one.
Musk's use of Twitter has
at times led to problems
for his own companies. In
one August 2018 tweet,
for instance, Musk asserted
that he had the funding to
take Tesla private for $420
a share, although a court
has ruled that it wasn't
true. That led to an SEC in-
vestigation that Musk is still
fighting.q