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How Elon Upstaged Donald
The new Troll in Chief may have undermined both authoritarianism and his hopes for a techno-monarchy
Elon Musk accomplished a lot this week.
No, I’m not talking about the Twitter owner’s implementation of the 8 dollars for a blue checkmark scheme, his massive reduction in workforce before rehiring many of them the next day, or his proposal for a content moderation council to judge and delete dangerous tweets. I’m more interested in how, by his own example, he revealed his own impotence as well as that of the social media star he replaced, Donald Trump. And in doing so, Musk has also revealed the inadequacy of any dictatorial approach to technology, business, or politics.
Let’s go through this fast, just like Musk did:
From the get-go, his decision-making process has been imperious, whimsical, lacking any coherent strategy or awareness of second and third-order effects, oblivious to the way choices externalize harm to others, and as performative as a businessman on reality TV. He played to the most sycophantic entourage of hangers on — all of them trying to win the attention of their cult leader. He came out of the gate — literally hours into his first morning as chief — spreading fake news and defying all social norms.
And no, I’m not talking about Trump, but his replacement at the top of the Twitter troll pole, Elon Musk.
I think the only way to understand Elon Musk is as the third in a succession of increasingly powerful social media anti-heroes who melted down in front of millions of people. The first was Charlie Sheen, who shortly after getting fired from his sitcom proceeded to go on a manic posting streak. “Tiger blood” and “Winning” may not have been potent memes, but Sheen had jumped into what we might call the “standing wave” of social media culture.
This all occurred immediately after the Iran’s “Twitter revolution,” when it seemed the entire platform had become super serious as we collectively witnessed a nation attempting to wrest itself from authoritarian control. We needed comic relief, and Sheen leaped into the twitterverse like a surfer into the ocean. He was carried along a wave of attention populated less by true fans than voyeurs hoping to watch…
