SAN FRANCISCO, United States —
Elon Musk has
gone from being a colorful, controversial Twitter star to a major stakeholder
with the purchase of some 73.5 million shares of the platform disclosed on
Monday.
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The serial entrepreneur behind electric car star
Tesla owns more than 9 percent of outstanding shares in the social network
he has often criticized — and now has the potential to change.
This is a look back at attention-grabbing Musk
moments on Twitter, where he has more than 80 million followers.
The real Musk
Musk made his official
Twitter debut on June 4, 2010, evidently to thwart others from tweeting in his
name.
“Please ignore prior tweets, as that was someone pretending
to be me,” he wrote.
“This is actually me.”
His account bears a blue check mark to indicate his
identity has been verified. Musk follows just 112 people, according to his
profile.
Prior to 2017, Musk’s annual Twitter use was
relatively low, according to website visualcapitalist.com. Musk fired off more
than 1,000 for the first time that year and the number climbed, topping 3,000
in 2020 and 2021, the tracker indicated.
Most of his
tweets have been about Tesla and his private space exploration enterprise
SpaceX, with slivers devoted to topics such as politics, cryptocurrency and the
environment, according to Visual Capitalist.
Unsworth gaffe
In July of 2018, Musk used Twitter to insult British caver Vernon
Unsworth, who was part of a dramatic effort to rescue boys trapped in a flooded
cave in Thailand.
Musk had sent a self-designed submarine that
Unsworth had mocked as a publicity stunt not useful in the effort.
Musk’s tweet was deleted, but Unsworth filed a
defamation lawsuit that ended with a jury ruling in favor of Musk in
Los Angeles at the end of 2019.
US regulators
Musk found himself in the
crosshairs of regulators at the
US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in
August of 2018 after he tweeted he might take Tesla private.
“Am considering taking Tesla private at $420,” Musk
said in the tweet.
“Funding secured.”
The market reacted to Musk’s surprise comment, which
he never followed through on or provided proof to support.
A settlement with US regulators, who accused Musk of
misleading investors, resulted in him stepping down as chairman of the Tesla
board and paying a $20 million fine.
Musk was also required to have tweets directly
related to Tesla’s business be pre-approved by legal counsel at the car maker.
His clashes with US regulators include him tweeting
that SEC actually stands for “Shortseller Enrichment Commission,” inferring
they were on the side of those betting against Tesla.
Offbeat products Musk has sold include red “short
shorts” to mark Tesla shares climbing to the chagrin of those who tried to make
money from the stock going down.
Tax time
In November of 2021, Musk
used Twitter to poll his followers regarding whether to sell 10 percent of his
Tesla shares due to controversy about whether if unrealized gains are a way to dodge taxes.
He vowed to abide by the outcome of the vote, which
was in favor of selling the shares.
The SEC is investigating whether Musk told his
brother, Kimbal, about the plan ahead of time to allow him to make favorable
moves with Tesla shares, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Challenge to Putin
Musk challenged
Russian President Vladimir Putin to “single combat” in a
tweet fired off on March 14, 2022.
The winner would
get Ukraine, which Russia has invaded.
The head of the
Chechen Republic, Putin-supporter
Ramzan Kadyrov, responded that Musk would be
fighting out of his weight class against a manly opponent.
Musk doubled down
during an ensuing exchange, even temporarily changing his displayed first name
to “Elona” to shrug off Kadyrov’s comments.
Free speech
Musk recently posted the results of a poll asking whether his Twitter
followers think the one-to-many messaging platform “rigorously adheres” to the
principle that free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.
The more than 2
million votes cast were more than double the number of Musk’s followers, with
the majority saying “no.”
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