elon musk
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Tech billionaire Elon Musk is being hammered for using his influence and X, formerly Twitter, to force a government shutdown to aid Donald Trump.
Tech billionaire and Tesla founder Elon Musk is exerting outsized influence over President-elect Donald Trump, with some seeing him aiming to force a shutdown of the federal government. Democratic lawmakers and observers are pointing to how Musk has been using the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to amplify calls to do so as House Majority Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to get the stop-gap bill passed with two days to go. In a post on X, Musk wrote: “Shutting down” the government (which doesn’t actually shut down critical functions btw) is infinitely better than passing a horrible bill.”
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1869476312278286359
He would also post that any member of the House of Representatives who voted for it “deserves to be out in 2 years.” Musk was joined by former Republican presidential candidate and co-chair of the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Vivek Ramaswamy, who also blasted Johnson and the bill. The call to “kill the bill” was amplified by MAGA supporters, and Trump himself said he was against the bill to raise the debt ceiling on Wednesday (Dec. 18). When asked if those actions weighed on the GOP members, Arizona Representative Andy Biggs replied, “I think it’s having an effect on some people. I think it probably is.”
The moves by Musk have earned him scorn from Democrats. “If this is the type of power he has, then he is going to be the unelected co-president of this country and we’ve got to be super blunt about it,” said Florida Representative Maxwell Frost, who had a back-and-forth with Musk on X afterward. Vermont Representative Becca Balint echoed his statements. “I’m going to be talking to my folks back home in Vermont who voted for Trump: You thought you voted for Trump, but in fact, Trump just caved to Musk,” she said to Axios.
The pressure is now on Johnson to come up with a plan to satisfy conservatives – one proposal reportedly would include a “clean CR” and dropping $100 million in disaster aid and $30 billion for farmers. Both moves would greatly affect Trump’s base. Johnson’s position is also shaky with a slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives, as his vote to remain Speaker takes place Jan. 3.
Nick Jonas and Elon Musk might be at the start of a new bromance, with the singer/songwriter playfully reacting to the billionaire using an old Jonas Brothers meme on Tuesday.
The interaction started with Musk retweeting a post from the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley account that claimed the automotive company is “up 100% since Donald Trump won” the 2024 presidential election. “My, how the tables have turned!” the X owner wrote in response, adding a GIF from a beloved old video of Nick and Kevin Jonas lifting up a brown coffee table and rotating it 180 degrees.
In the original clip, Joe Jonas then bursts into the room and announces: “Oh, how the tables have turned.”
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After seeing that Musk had used a GIF of him and his brothers, the “Jealous” singer retweeted the post with a photo of the businessman knowingly smiling and wrote, “Take us to the Year 3000.”
The exchange was enough to get some people talking, as Musk is one of the world’s most polarizing figures — in large part due to his partnership with the current president-elect. Shortly after beating out Kamala Harris in November, Trump appointed the tech titan as the co-head of a new U.S. government department of efficiency with Vivek Ramaswamy; now, some fans are interpreting Nick’s post as a subtle endorsement of Musk and, by extension, the twice-impeached ex-POTUS.
“Is this a trump post?!” one person commented, tagging Nick’s wife, actress Priyanka Chopra, and adding, “get your man.”
“tweeting at elon musk is definitely a choice,” another person replied, while a different upset fan wrote, “I DID NOT HAVE A CRUSH ON NICK JONAS FOR THIS TO HAPPEN OH MY GOD.”
Billboard has reached out to Nick’s reps for comment.
The Camp Rock alum is currently gearing up to star in The Last Five Years on Broadway, opening March 18. He also stars in Robert Schwartzman’s The Good Half, which premiered in theaters over the summer and became available for streaming on Hulu in November.
Nick hasn’t dropped a solo album since 2021’s Spaceman, but he and his brothers did release The Album in May 2023, debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. Two and a half months after wrapping their world tour in Poland, the Jonas Brothers are now slated to perform on this year’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
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Source: Brandon Bell / Getty / Elon Musk / Donald Trump
Elon Musk was not pinching pennies during the presidential election. The Tesla Chief donated a lot of money to ensure Donald Trump slimed his way back into the White House.
NBC News reports that Musk donated over $20 million to a mysterious super PAC at the end of Felon 47’s campaign as part of the $250 million he spent to help make America racist again; oops, we meant “great” again, according to new finance reports.
Per NBC News:
Musk financed RBG PAC, according to the report the group filed Thursday night with the Federal Election Commission. The super PAC, which did not disclose its donors before the election, launched ads contending that Trump did not support a federal abortion ban.
All of the money the group pulled in — $20.5 million — came from a single donation from the Elon Musk Revocable Trust in Austin, Texas. RBG PAC spent almost all of its money on digital ads, mailers and text messages, according to the campaign finance report, which covered Oct. 17 through Nov. 25.
The news website also reports that Musk donated $238 million to the America PAC throughout the election cycle, including an extra $120 million in the election’s final weeks.
We Can’t Forget About Those $1 Million Giveaways
According to federal disclosures, America PAC used the money for canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts via text message, printing, postage, and digital ads. America PAC also ran a controversial $1 million giveaway that saw Musk hand checks to people who signed up for the PAC’s heavily conservative-leaning petition.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner sued Musk and the PAC in late October to stop the giveaway. Still, a judge in the state sided with Musk and America PAC, allowing them to continue with the giveaway.
The Justice Department also warned America PAC that the giveaway was damn near close to being illegal, but subsequently, no action was taken by the department.
According to America PAC’s finance report, the $1 million bribes, oops, we mean prizes, were listed as payments for a “spokesperson consultant.”
Bootleg Tony Stark also gave $3 million to the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) Alliance, a super PAC affiliated with Donald Trump’s pick to run HHS, Robert F. Kenndey Jr.
So, Musk, who Sweet Potato Mussolini tapped to run the made-up Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to help cut government spending, spent a lot to ensure he had plenty of influence when President-Elect Trump took office.
We see the jig.
Grimes is sharing a glimpse her difficult year-long custody battle with Elon Musk, with whom she shares three children: sons X Æ A-Xii, 4, and Techno Mechanicus, 2, as well as daughter Exa Dark Sideræl, 3.
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“Having babies rips you apart and puts you back together,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter until Musk bought and renamed the platform in 2023). “Babies are ten thousand philosophy classes of s— you can only learn from that experience.”
She continued, “Spent a year locked in battle in a state with terrible mothers rights having my instagram posts and modeling used as reasons I shouldn’t have my kids and fighting and detaching from the love of my life as he becomes unrecognizable to me, with a fraction of his resources (or iq/ strategy experience), all the while I didn’t see one of my babies for 5 months. And this is only what can be said publicly, since most of my experience these last years should remain behind closed doors.”
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While she didn’t indicate which of her children she wasn’t able to see and why, the “Genesis” artist continued that she is now ready to reignite her creative process, “Poetry and pure raw emotion are pouring out of my soul at a rate I’ve never known, and Im improving deeply as a producer past the technical and back to the art after now knowing my craft so much better. + I’ve found the creative partners I’ve always wanted. So I hate to waste everyone’s time, but I have to make what I’m making right now. And it might be upsetting and provocative to many, but it’s real and the people who will feel me will feel me.”
She concluded, “And all that said I’m grateful for every bullet I caught. Cuz I feel on top of the world right now. And everything that used to give me anxiety feels like child’s play after all this. Ego death, ego birth – it’s everything an artist could dream of.”
Musk has 12 children total. In addition to X Æ A-Xii, Techno Mechanicus and Exa Dark Sideræl, Musk shares seven children with his first wife, Justine Wilson — Nevada Alexander Musk, Griffin Musk, Vivian Jenna Wilson and triplets Kai, Saxon and Damian Musk. In 2021, he welcomed twins Strider and Azure with Shivon Zilis.
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / Elon Musk / X
Elon Musk might have definitely screwed himself big time. It’s looking like the migration to other social media platforms like Bluesky isn’t a fluke; even journalists are bidding farewell to X, formally Twitter.
The cesspool that is X is now experiencing a mass exodus of not just regular folks but journalists and other organizations who have finally had enough of Elon Musk and the dumb changes he made to the once uber-popular platform.
The Daily Kos reports that the main reasons people deactivate their X accounts are the forthcoming changes to the terms of service that will take effect on Nov.15 and the platform’s poor quality.
Per The Daily Kos:
X’s new service terms require users who wish to sue the company to file in specifically the “U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas or state courts located in Tarrant County, Texas.” These courts are a favorite of conservative activists as they are stocked with Republican appointees.
The Washington Post reports that new terms of service is a red flag to many who believe its a move to bring cases to Musk and conservative-friendly courts.
One of the courts that Musk is pushing for features Judge Reed O’Conner, who just so happens to own between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of Tesla stock. He also refused to recuse himself from Musk’s lawsuit against Media Matters.
We reported that The Guardian took the massive step of announcing it would no longer post on X but will not stop users from sharing their stories on the platform.
“Social media can be an important tool for news organisations and help us to reach new audiences,” The Guardian writes, “but, at this point, X now plays a diminished role in promoting our work.”
Don Lemon, who is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Musk for an alleged breach of contract, also announced he was done with X, writing in a statement, “I once believed it was a place for honest debate and discussion, transparency, and free speech, but I now feel it does not serve that purpose.”
The departure from X also comes Bluesky saw its memberships skyrocket in the wake of Musk fully endorsing Donald Trump and seeing ridiculous amounts of right-wing propaganda flooding timelines.
Musk was also appointed head of a new agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is something else he is pumping into his personal X account.
The second Trump presidency already reeks of corruption.
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Source: SOPA Images / Getty
It’s no secret to anyone who is regularly on social media and is not from the land of MAGA Delulu that Elon Musk has not only eroded the value of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, but he has turned it into a utopia of racial slurs, right-wing propaganda and shameless Trump-humping. Well, one media outlet is not about to pretend Musk hasn’t turned X into a MAGA fan page and it will no longer post on the platform because of it.
The Guardian is having none of Musk and his X-Klan (see what I did there?) shenanigans.
From Variety:
The Guardian made the announcement on Wednesday in a post on its website, writing that “the benefits of being on the platform formerly called Twitter” have now been “outweighed by the negatives.” The publication cited the “often disturbing content” found on the platform and said the way it handled last week’s U.S. presidential election — which saw Donald Trump win a second term — “crystallized” its decision.
“This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism,” the publication said. “The U.S. presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.”
Musk, of course, responded to the news on X by basically describing Trump but applying the definition to The Guardian, tweeting, “They are a laboriously vile propaganda machine.”
That’s rich coming from the guy who supports the guy who has been fact-checked and found to be lying more than any modern president — the same president who spent four years spreading factless and thoroughly debunked election fraud propaganda until he kicked and screamed his way back into the White House.
Shout out to The Guardian for refusing to normalize Musk, Trump and the rest of the white nationalist propagandists who are, indeed, relying on lies and bigotry to “shape political discourse.” That’s what integrity actually looks like, not that any of the aforementioned would know anything about that.
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Source: JIM WATSON / Getty / Elon Musk
Let the grift begin. Felon 47, aka President-Elect Donald Trump, is not wasting any time getting his corrupt administration together. Joining him on his mission to take us back to stoneage, aka “Make America Great Again,” will be Phony Stark himself, Elon Musk, who will head a new agency that already sounds like it isn’t nothing but a way to enrich himself.
Donald Trump officially announced on Tuesday, via a statement, that Tesla chief and the current owner of X, formerly Twitter, will be the head of a new department alongside fellow Trump glazer and failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy called the Department of Government Efficiency. If you noticed that its acronym is hilariously “DOGE,” the crypto coin that Musk pushes on his X account daily, you are already spotting the jig.
Per The Verge, the completely made-up agency will “pave the way” for the Trump administration to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies” while “working outside of the government.”
DOGE (we can’t believe this is real) will work alongside the White House and the Office of Management and Budget and will have until July 4th, 2026, to complete its task, according to a statement shared by Trump on his trash platform, Truth Social.
Musk’s appointment falls in line with one of Trump’s promises to the billionaire, who he said he would appoint as head of the government efficiency commission if he was elected.
The Jig Is So Clear
Phony Stark has said he would cut at least $2 trillion, an idea The Washington Post has said in its reporting is virtually impossible unless he makes cuts to social security or the defense budget.
Musk has even suggested that the cuts he is proposing could have severe short-term financial impacts.
Confirming the news, Musk hopped on his sh***ty platform, writing in a post, “The merch will be (three fire emojis).” Meanwhile, his crappy coin, DOGE, has seen its price double since the election. Yeah, the grifting will be something else.
So much for draining the swamp, it definitely looks like Trump is going to making America broke again.
You can see the reactions to Musk and Ramaswamy’s new agency below.
1. Exactly
2. They definitely will not do that.
4. Irony is dead
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Source: Matt Cardy / Getty / X
The consensus is that X, formerly Twitter, has been trash since Elon Musk took over. We need a new space to share memes, jokes, and news that’s not MAGA-fueled and watch shows together as a family, and there are options. Wherever you choose to go, we are here to help you kick X to the curb.
It’s no secret ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter, changed the name to X, reinstated Donald Trump’s account, and introduced a bevy of changes that made the platform outright unbearable, users (especially Black Twitter) have been screaming for a place to take online cleverness, conversations, and jokes.
Well, if you are one of the 700,000 people who left X for Bluesky in the last few months, Instagram Threads or Spill, you are probably considering shutting down that old X account for good, just to stick it to the lord of Dark MAGA, Elon Musk.
If you need assistance, follow these steps to shut down your X account for good.
Make Your Account Private
First, you definitely should make your account private just to let the people you trust the most and want to migrate with you to the other app of choice.
If you post on X via the desktop, you can make your account private by selecting More > Settings and Privacy > Privacy and Safety > Audience, media, and Tagging > Protect your posts.
For mobile users, follow these steps: Settings & Support > Settings and Privacy > Privacy and Safety > Audience and tagging > Protect your posts.
When the browser pops up, just hit “Protect.”
Download Your Tweets
The second step is to download all of the Tweets you have posted throughout the years to retain all of that information.
Here’s how you do that: via the web browser, click on More > Settings and Privacy > Your account > Download an archive of your data.
If you’re on mobile, select Settings & Support > Settings and Privacy > Your account > Download an archive of your data.
Once you have completed those steps, you will be prompted to reenter your password. A verification code will then be sent to the email you signed up with, and possibly other verification codes as well.
Once that is complete, you select “Request Archive,” from there, it may take up to 24 hours to receive a copy of your archive.
Deactivate Your X Account
The final step is the most liberating one: deactivating your X account. You can begin the deactivation process in your browser by clicking more; on mobile, simply tap your profile icon.
For browser users, follow this process: settings and Support > Settings and Privacy > Your account > Deactivate your account.
Mobile users select Settings & Support > Settings and Privacy > Your account > Deactivate account.
Like with any app or service you are trying to cancel, you can expect some resistance trying to deter you from canceling; X is no different.
Once you complete the above steps, you will be given several paragraphs of information about what data will be available to you after deactivation.
X will also inform you that your account will not be permanently deactivated until after 30 days, giving you time to reconsider your decision.
But why would you want to do that?
If you followed all of these steps, you have taken the enormous step of liberating yourself from X.
Congrats!
See you on Threads or Bluesky.
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Source: The Washington Post / Getty
Aides to Donald Trump aren’t pleased with Elon Musk being a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago, with some declaring how “odd” it is.
According to reports, tech billionaire Elon Musk has been a constant fixture at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, for the past week unnerving those close to him. Sources have revealed that the Tesla CEO dined with the president-elect and his wife Sunday (Nov. 10), and roamed the estate with his son almost every day beginning on Election Day.
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“While Musk himself is still not expected to take any kind of formal position inside Trump’s administration, given how complicated it would be with his companies, what’s becoming clearer tonight is that he doesn’t really need to,” CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins said in a news segment. “One source told me, Elon Musk is having just as much influence from the outside.” She went on to add that Musk has been present for calls to Trump from various world leaders and that “he’s also weighing in on staffing decisions, making clear his preference for certain roles even.”
CNN tech journalist Kara Swisher confirmed the tech billionaire’s influence and aides’ reaction. “He definitely inserts himself all the time, that’s his style,” Swisher said in a report on Monday (Nov. 11). “I’ve heard from Trump people, calling me saying, ‘Oh, wow. This is odd’. And it is.” Elon Musk lent his services to aid Trump in the election’s final days, creating a political action committee (and spending over $100 million in the process) and even moving to Pennsylvania. With that support came controversy, as it was revealed that Musk has been talking with Russian President Vladimir Putin for over two years, facing pressure to comply with the authoritarian’s demands.
Trump previously promised Musk would have a significant say in his administration, but observers feel there would be an eventual ego clash leaving Musk out in the cold. “There’s room for only one star, one genius in the Trump White House,” historian David Nasaw wrote in an opinion-editorial for the New York Times. “As the president-elect has told us time and again, he is one smart fellow and a ‘very stable genius.’ He is not going to share his victory and center stage with anyone. And why should he?”
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Source: IAN LANGSDON / Getty / Bluesky
Is X, formerly on Twitter, finally on its way out? Bluesky, a social media platform similar to Twitter of old, has gained many new users and could be the new wave going forward.
Speaking with The Verge, Bluesky COO Rose Wang confirmed that the social media platform has gained over 700,00 followers in the last week and now boasts more than 14.5 million users total.
Wang told the website that a majority of the users are from the United States. Currently, the Bluesky app is the number two free social media app in the US App Store, only trailing Meta’s Threads.
The sharp increase in followers could be due to several factors, including Elon Musk, the recent change to the block feature, and Donald Trump’s unfortunate presidential election victory.
Per The Verge:
The independent platform has seen a lot of growth in recent weeks — on October 24th, Bluesky announced it had 13 million users. After X’s recent announcement that it would let blocked users still see posts from the person that blocked them, for example, Bluesky said it added 500,000 new users in one day.
The results of the US presidential election could be part of Bluesky’s new influx of users. People may be looking to use a platform that’s not owned by Musk or, like some Taylor Swift fans, may be looking for a new platform following an increase in hate speech on X.
Bluesky Has Made Significant Improvements To The Platform
Since it first launched as an invite-only service, Bluesky has improved greatly thanks to several new improvements, such as sharing videos, pinned posts, and sending DMs.
Users can also create custom and select which feeds to follow on Bluesky. Even with all the strides the app has made, it still trails Threads which has crossed 275 million monthly users.
But if Elon Musk keeps making X a cesspool, combined with the current momentum the app is seeing, Bluesky could easily take the number one spot and be the new home for former members of Black Twitter.