elon musk
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / X / Elon Musk
It looks like Elon Musk’s X is giving blue checks back to the platform’s most popular users, and they are like, thanks, but no thanks.
Overnight, Elon Musty’s X, formerly Twitter, “gifted” premium subscriptions to some users on X, mainly those who vowed never to pay for the subscription service that gave users the “blue check,” along with access to other premium features.
Musk confirmed in a post on his bootleg platform that this is the case, writing, “Going forward, all 𝕏 accounts with over 2500 verified subscriber followers will get Premium features for free, and accounts with over 5000 will get Premium+ for free.”
Those who have gotten their blue checkmarks back to their names are taking to the platform to let their followers know they are still ten toes down on their initial stance and did not give Bootleg Tony Stark any money to get back their checks.
Acadmey Award-nominated actor Jeffrey Wright was one of those users who expressed that sentiment, sharing a screenshot of a notification from X that he was getting his complimentary subscription to X Premium.
In the caption for the post, he wrote, “Pay $8? Kidding. Help me. But don’t say anything too free speechy about me or my Garbage Tower of Babel shitsite.”
Netflix’s Good Times star also spoke on the matter, writing, “What happened? I didn’t pay for this. I would NEVER pay for this. When did the Blue Check mark start getting passed around again?!
Actor Mark Hamill, aka our guy Luke Skywalker, responded to Brown’s post, “I didn’t pay when it went away, & really didn’t care. Then, out of nowhere, it mysteriously reappeared. #whatever.”
Well, the sentiment remains thanks, but no thanks.
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Don Lemon was slated to have a new talk show in partnership with the X platform but after an interview described as tense, those plans are no more. The veteran journalist shared a statement on X stating that the company owned by Elon Musk will not be going forward with the planned show.
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Don Lemon, 58, shared his side of the interview he held with Musk last Friday that was presumably meant to be the first episode of the show. During the chat, Lemon says that the conversation took some turns and said that it was Musk himself who encouraged him to bring his show to the platform.
“We had a good conversation. Clearly he felt differently,” Lemon said in a portion of his statement. “His commitment to a global town square where all questions can be asked and all ideas can be shared seems not to include questions of him from people like me.”
Lemon added, “There were no restrictions on the interview that he willingly agreed to, and my questions were respectful and wide ranging, covering everything from SpaceX to the presidential election.”
While Musk did comment on X in response to Lemon’s statement, the corporate account for the platform had a more pointed response.
“The Don Lemon Show is welcome to publish its content on X, without censorship, as we believe in providing a platform for creators to scale their work and connect with new communities,” the account shared. “However, like any enterprise, we reserve the right to make decisions about our business partnerships, and after careful consideration, X decided not to enter into a commercial partnership with the show.”
Don Lemon says his new show will air on YouTube starting Monday, March 18, and will also air in full on X.
We’ve also got reactions from X to the happenings below.
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Photo: Gilbert Flores / Getty
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / Elon Musk
Phony Stark, aka Elon Musk’s pockets, might be a little lighter if fired Twitter executives get their way.
As seen on The Verge, when Tesla chief and owner of X, Elon Musk, reluctantly took over Twitter, he gave a lot of people the boot, including top execs at the social media company.
Now, those same Twitter execs are coming for their coins they feel Musk owes them, the website reports via The Wall Street Journal’s reporting.
Former CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal, former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, and former general counsel Sean Edgett slapped Musk with a lawsuit asking for more than $128 million in severance payments.
Per The Verge:
The same execs who forced Musk to close his $44 billion acquisition in the first place, who are now claiming his goal was to “cheat” them out of $200 million before their stock options vested the next morning. They also have a remarkably thorough source to explain why he closed the deal and fired them when he did: Elon Musk himself, as quoted by Walter Isaacson in the biography released last year, Elon Musk.
Another passage cited from the book calls out a conversation between Musk and his lawyer, Alex Spiro. “[H]e tried to resign … but we beat him,” they said, specifically referring to Agrawal. By firing Agrawal before he was able to send a resignation letter, they apparently believed it would mean the company wouldn’t have to pay his severance package.
The lawsuit also claims that X’s board says the company needed to pay $90 million to the lawyers who successfully made Elon Musk go through with Twitter’s $44 billion acquisition.
Call us haters, but we hope those former Twitter execs win this lawsuit.
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / Elon Musk / XMail
Elon Musk, a.k.a. bootleg Phony Stark, isn’t done with dumb ideas. The Tesla chief now wants to compete with Google’s popular email client, Gmail, with a new product called XMail.
Musk seems to have a serious one-sided beef with Google, and we wonder if the folks there know about it. First, he drops his version of ChatGPT called “Grok.”
He has also been calling out the Alpahabet Inc. owned company’s search tool, calling its AI tool Gemini “insane” and “racist.” He claims he spoke with a “senior exec” who assured him the company will “take immediate action to fix the racial and gender bias in Gemini.”
Now, he claims he is dropping his own email client called XMail.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Musk revealed “it’s coming” when replying to X Engineer Nate McGrady asking, “When are we making XMail?”
We all know Musk is full of you-know-what and tends to make outlandish claims all the time, but he could be serious about this XMail thing.
If he thinks he will be able to compete with Google’s Gmail immediately, he’s definitely going to have some serious work cut out for him.
Demand Sage claims that Gmail currently has 1.8 billion active users globally, and we don’t see XMail coming anywhere near that.
Yeah, so good luck with peeling off longtime Gmail users and luring them to “XMail” if he decides to create it.
We truly believe Elon Musk is just talking out the side of his a** like he does with everything else.
You can see more reactions to the possibitly of XMail arriving in the gallery below.
1. Accurate
3. Howling
4. Sure Jan
5. This guy gets it.
6. Excellent question
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Source: Anadolu / Getty
A tech watchdog group is placing high scrutiny on X, formerly Twitter, alleging that it’s letting terror groups pay for verified accounts.
A report from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) on Wednesday (Feb. 14), claimed that it discovered that 28 premium subscription accounts on X, formerly Twitter, under owner Elon Musk’s verification plan were given to groups that are currently under sanction by the United States including designated terror groups such as the Hezbollah organization. The subscriptions, identified by a blue check for verification, cost $8 a month and offer more promotion by the platform’s algorithm. Before Musk acquired the platform, accounts with a blue check were primarily for celebrities, companies and other notable figures.
The report detailed all of the groups and individuals involved beginning with Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah whose account has over 93,000 followers. It was listed as “ID verified,” which meant that X received government certification from Nasrallah. Also included was an account belonging to Ansarallah, the Yemeni militia group more commonly known as the Houthis. An account belonging to Iran’s Press TV state-run news outlet and one belonging to Russia’s Tinkoff Bank was found to have gold checks, which denote verified organizations. The cost for those subscriptions is $1,000 a month.
“We were surprised to find that X was providing premium services to a wide range of groups the U.S. has sanctioned for terrorism and other activities that harm its national security,” said Katie Paul, the director of the Tech Transparency Project to a reporter. “It’s yet another sign that X has lost control of its platform.” In their report, the TTP stated that 10 of the 28 accounts were paying to ensure that they kept “legacy” checkmarks that they had earlier. There is uncertainty as to how these groups and individuals avoided the rules to pay for their accounts according to X’s guidelines. Musk did let go of 80% of the staff at X since acquiring the platform in October 2022.
X released a statement later on that day refuting the claims from the TTP report. “Several of the accounts listed in the Tech Transparency Report are not directly named on sanction lists, while some others may have visible account check marks without receiving any services that would be subject to sanctions,” the statement read. Several of the mentioned accounts did have their check marks removed before the statement was posted.
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Source: LISA O’CONNOR / Getty / Elon Musk
Elon Musk is once again showing his a** on his X platform. The Tesla chief is pushing conspiracy theories in response to a video of immigrants assaulting a New York City police officer.
The X owner is back on his bullsh*t. Spotted on Crooks and Liars, Musk decided to add his unwanted two cents into the “migrant crisis” after a video of migrants beating an NYPD officer went viral.
Dipping into the white supremacist bag, Musk used the great replacement theory, describing it as a tool the Biden Administration is using to influence the 2024 presidential election.
“This explains why there are so few deportations, as every deportation is a lost vote. As happened this week, you can literally assault police officers in broad daylight in New York, be released with no bail, give everyone the finger and *still* not be deported!! Outrageous,” Musk wrote in a quote post on X, formerly Twitter.
Elon Musk Is Also Helping MAGA Lover Gina Carano
Musk wasn’t done showing his a**. Actor and former professional MMA fighter Gina Carano, who got canned from The Mandalorian for her MAGA-influenced political views, announced she is suing Disney and that Musk and X will be backing her.
Per NBC News:
“A short time ago in a galaxy not so far away, Defendants made it clear that only one orthodoxy in thought, speech, or action was acceptable in their empire, and that those who dared to question or failed to fully comply would not be tolerated,” the lawsuit says. “And so it was with Carano.”
X is helping cover the costs of the lawsuit, Carano confirmed Tuesday in a post to the social media platform.
“I would like to express my deepest gratitude & thank you to @ElonMusk & @X for giving me an opportunity to bring my case to light,” she wrote.
Carano also claims that she was the victim of a “bullying smear campaign” and that Disney wanted to “make an example” out of her.
Okay girl.
Elon Musk continues to prove he has an allegiance to losers.
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty
Elon Musk has been accused of spreading misinformation about the 2024 presidential election by the White House, causing concern.
As the 2024 presidential election season is getting into full swing, the White House and the campaign team for President Joe Biden have alleged that Elon Musk is purposely sharing misinformation about the election on X, formerly Twitter, and preventing actual fact-checking. “It is profoundly irresponsible to spread false information and sow distrust about how our elections operate,” said Biden campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, to the New York Times, adding: “It’s even more dangerous coming from the owner of a social media platform. We will continue to call out this recklessness as we carry out President Biden’s commitment to protecting our elections.”
The statement is the first direct accusation by the campaign, and it marks another point of contention between Musk and Biden. Musk has been openly contemptuous of President Biden after his Tesla electric vehicle company was excluded from White House events. Since his acquisition of X, the tech billionaire has implored those following him on the social media platform to vote Republican.
Harmeet K. Dhillon, a lawyer representing former President Donald Trump, said that the moves made X “a much better place for conservatives,” praising Musk. Musk has also dismantled X’s system for flagging fake election content, stating that it amounted to election interference in addition to amplifying false claims of undocumented immigrants voting in American elections.
The defiance by Musk is still present, even as advertisers have registered complaints that allowing such disinformation and content would further harm democracy in the nation. These same charges have been levied against X by the European Union, which filed a report late last year noting how in comparison to other social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, instances of election interference content were high on X.
Linda Yaccarino, the chief executive at X, has been steadily refuting Musk’s claims of removing the integrity team, pointing to the Community Notes feature and saying there will be expansion. Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County, Arizona county recorder, still has his concerns over Musk’s behavior. “Whether it’s President Trump or Mr. Musk talking about this and keeping it very much a top-of-mind issue, that can potentially make our lives more challenging,” he said.
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Mark Cuban is known as one of the top business executives in the world and maintains an outspoken image on social media, especially when it comes to issues important to the times. Cuban, who just sold a controlling interest in the Dallas Mavericks, checked Elon Musk and the Tesla founder’s criticism of DEI measures in eloquent fashion but that upset some of the MAGA mutts out there.
Mark Cuban, 65, took to X to check Elon Musk and his offhand critique of DEI. Musk wrote, “DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it” to which journalist Ed Krassenstein replied with, “I don’t think DEI is “racism” but it definitely can have some major flaws that should be addressed.”
Musk fired back with “Discrimination on the basis of race, which DEI does, is literally the definition of racism” which prompted Cuban to chime in as the pair debated the finer points of DEI.
A portion of the response from Mark Cuban’s X account:
Let me help you out and give you my thoughts on DEI
1. DiversityGood businesses look where others don’t, to find the employees that will put your business in the best possible position to succeed.You may not agree, but I take it as a given that there are people of various races, ethnicities, orientation, etc that are regularly excluded from hiring consideration. By extending our hiring search to include them, we can find people that are more qualified. The loss of DEI-Phobic companies is my gain.
1a. We live in a country with very diverse demographics. In this era where trust of businesses can be hard to come by, people tend to connect more easily to people who are like them. Having a workforce that is diverse and representative of your stakeholders is good for business.
While Cuban’s measured response didn’t attack Musk and offered a solution-based approach, the MAGA stooges and those concerned with the myth of the erasure of the white male and other such nonsense dismissed the businessman’s viewpoints.
On X, we’ve captured reactions from all sides below.
See the full thread of conversation in the reply below.
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Photo: Getty
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / X / Twitter
Elon Musk’s struggling social media platform, X, formerly known as Twitter, suffered another blackout, and he has nothing to say.
Spotted on Deadline, the sinking ship we all used to love suffered a major blackout on Wednesday night, just before 10 pm PT, according to Downdetector.
Users were greeted by a dormant site with no feeds or posts working and a ‘Welcome To X” greeting with a “Let’s Go” action button that took them nowhere, according to Deadline.
But, at the time of the blackout, #MyTwitter, #NotTwitter, Did Elon, and #TwitterDown were all trending, hilariously.
X began working again around 11 pm PT, but no explanation was provided by the social platform or its owner, who is usually very active regarding his platform.
If you search his timeline, the only thing you will see referencing X is him sharing a quote in a post claiming that “X/Twitter site traffic up 22.3% Year over Year from November 2022-2023,” with him writing in the caption “Growth is strong.”
A Breakdown of Elon Musk’s Fumbling
X has been dying slowly since Elon Musk reluctantly purchased it for $44 billion. Since then, he has put on a masterclass showing everyone how to ruin a company and lose billions successfully.
He stupidly changed the name from Twitter to X, with many still calling it Twitter. He’s seemingly cosigned an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X, leading to companies pulling advertising dollars from the platform.
Musk double-downed on his stubbornness by taking a dig at those advertisers, leading to IBM to say we are good with advertising on X.
In another head-scratching decision, Phony Stark reinstated far-right Hulk Hogan, Alex Jones’ account.
We have no idea how much longer this platform will continue to function, y’all better start getting those Instagram Threads and TikTok accounts popping as soon as possible.
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Photo: NurPhoto / Getty
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Source: Joe Buglewicz / Getty / Alex Jones
Elon Musk continues to make X, formerly Twitter, one of the world’s worst places, all in the name of “free speech.”
For his next dumb move, Elon Musk announced he is reinstating far-right Hulk Hogan, aka Alex Jones, account on the struggling social media platform.
How did Musk come to this decision?
It only took one of his infamous polls shared with his 165 million followers, with 70% of them in favor of giving the conspiracy theorist his account back.
Alex Jones and his Infowars program were banned by Twitter in 2018. He was also ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion to the families of Sandy Hook victims after claiming the 2012 shooting that left 20 kids and six adults dead was a hoax.
Musk notes that policing Jones will be X users’ jobs through the community notes feature.
“The people have spoken and so it shall be,” Musk said in a post he shared Saturday evening. He continued, “It is a safe bet that Community Notes will respond rapidly to any AJ post that needs correction.”
He then tried his best to make sense of his decision, adding, “I vehemently disagree with what [Jones] said about Sandy Hook, but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not? That is what it comes down to in the end. If the people vote him back on, this will be bad for X financially, but principles matter more than money.”
Elon Musk Is Singing A Different Tune
Musk reinstating Jones’ X account is a big about-face from his stance in 2022, where he rejected users’ calls to bring him back.
“My firstborn child died in my arms,” Musk said in a post. “I felt his last heartbeat. I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics, or fame.”
Yeah, okay.
After trashing companies for no longer advertising on X, we don’t think reinstating Alex Jones will help lure them back.
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Photo: Joe Buglewicz / Getty