Twitter, Musk, and Trump
Musk says that if and when he owns Twitter he will allow Trump to return:
Musk said Tuesday he would reverse Twitter’s ban on former President Donald Trump if his acquisition goes through.
“Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots, or scam, spam accounts… I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” Musk said at FT Live’s Future of the Car conference. “I think that was a mistake, because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”
That’s an odd way to put it. Would it have been okay if it had been effective in resulting in Donald Trump not having a voice? Would it have been okay if it hadn’t been permanent?
I was interested enough in the answers to these questions that I watched the part of the Musk interview involving Twitter in order to see if I could figure it out. Here’s the relevant portion, and it’s still not clear. Seems to me that when the oh-so-superior interviewer asked him a question that stated that Trump (see *NOTE below) had incited the crowd to riot on January 6th, Musk didn’t push back on that at all. It also seemed – at least, this is my interpretation – that Musk might have banned Trump at least temporarily at that point if Musk had been in charge. As I said, it’s really not clear:
It may end up being moot, because – as Musk points out – there’s still a chance the deal will fall through, and Trump has also stated he’s not coming back to Twitter no matter what. Of course, that was a few weeks ago and before Musk said he’d lift the ban.
Surprisingly, considering its performance in recent years, the ACLU supports the return of Trump to Twitter. My opinion is that Trump might end up returning; he certainly loved Twitter for a long time and used it most cleverly.
[*NOTE: Musk’s supercilious FT interviewer in that clip calls Trump “the toupeed elephant in the room.” However, Trump doesn’t wear a toupee; here are various theories about what’s going on with his odd hairdo. And Elon Musk has almost certainly had one or two hair transplant procedures (or perhaps even wears a toupee, but certainly has had some sort of hair intervention).
That interviewer shows both his ignorance and his condescending arrogance in assuming he knows what he doesn’t know, and possibly annoying Musk into the bargain – although Musk’s expression doesn’t reveal any obvious reaction, his eyes go from looking down to suddenly looking straight at the camera right after the interviewer makes that comment about Trump’s supposed toupee. But in that interview Musk changes eye position right before answering many of the questions, not just that one (often he looks up when reacting, however).
I’ve often heard people say they can always tell when a person is wearing a toupee. But I think that’s a stupid thing to say. Sometimes you can tell, with a badly made toupee. But how would you know if you’re detecting all toupees if you’re by definition not spotting the really good ones? You wouldn’t know you had missed any, unless you had an official registry of all the toupee-wearers in the world.
Hmmm, maybe I’ll write a future post about toupee-spotting arrogance.]
You could also do a future post on hair transplantation. I can remember when Brandon was known as “Joey Plugs” because of the relatively primitive techniques of hair transplantation available when he was in his late 30s (back in the Middle Ages, of course). From a website called the Hair Loss Learning Center: “Surgical hair restoration has gone through serious refinement over the last 30 years, and today hair transplants are virtually undetectable. Hair transplant surgeons no longer use large ‘hair plugs,’ they transplant follicular units. Hair plugs used to contain 20-30 hairs per plug, which gave the unnatural appearance of doll hair. Follicular unit grafts come in groups of one (1) hair, two (2) hair, three (3) hair, four (4), and even five (5) hairs per graft. This is how hair naturally grows on the scalp. . . . Joe Biden most likely underwent Follicular Unit Strip Surgery (FUSS), to excise the old scar and refine his previous work. Most of the work has been done to his hairline and midscalp.”
So you can title your future post “The Fuss about Biden’s Hair,” or something similar.
https://www.hairlosslearningcenter.org/topic/did-joe-biden-fix-hair-plugs/3386
Haha, based on an incident in my childhood I can bask in my “toupee-spotting arrogance”. When I was about 5 or 6 a handyman or repairman came over to our house and I asked him, “Are you wearing a wig?”, of course mortifying my mother.
She told me that he called her afterwards and said, “Yes I do wear a toupee, how did your son know?”. As I recall (it was a *really* long time ago) it was not that it “looked fake” but I thought I saw a small piece of mesh fabric near the edge of his hairline.
“I think that was a mistake, because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”
A more reassuring answer might’ve been something like just reiterating what he already said, that banning should almost never be done beyond some obvious exceptions, and Trump didn’t meet any those exceptions. So yeah, that’s dissappointing.
And as you said, it’s hard to clearly get at what Musk really believes about the whole January 6 incident and whatever Trump’s role in it was from these comments. Does he believe Trump incited the mob? Or does he believe that Trump bears some small amount of the blame for what happened?
Musk seems to me to firmly indicate that the questioner, to the extent the questioner makes himself an advocate for Trump’s banning, is a moral cretin and a stupid tactician in his own crooked cause. Pretty clearly, I think. Though of course the interviewer is too dumb to recognize Musk’s insult.
Not to worry.
The Feds are gonna get Musk on tax charges. Or something.
And the Chinese may end up helping “Biden”‘s anti-Musk campaign. (Why shouldn’t they?)
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/gordon-johnson-teslas-april-sales-china-implode-fall-98-sequentially-despite-musks-comments
So you know Musk’s over the target.
(On the other hand, I’m not sure I’d buy one of those things either. Never was a big fan of Russian roulette…)
To assess the probability you’ll be afflicted with male pattern baldness, you run up the maternal line (mother, maternal grandmother, maternal grandmother’s mother &c) and check the father of each. Your risk approaches nil asymptotically the number of generations back you have to run ‘ere you find a female ancestor with a bald father.
I’ve located an image of an antique and regrettably faded photograph of Donald Trump’s maternal-side grandfather. As far as I can tell, the man in the picture is in late middle age and has hair on the top of his head. The father of Donald Trump’s maternal grandmother died in 1868, so it would be unsurprising were there no surviving photographs of him (given the family’s remote location).
Note that Robert Trump had a full head of hair without any odd contrivances in the way he wore it. Maryanne Trump Berry’s son David Desmond also has a full head of hair. So it stands to reason Mary MacLeod Trump had at least one clean chromosome to pass on to her children.
I’m getting the vibe that things are not going smoothly for Musk’s acquisition, and he is attempting to give a good-for-business patina to what he formerly called his free-speech absolutism, because the latter position is not helping his case. I’m afraid I don’t understand what the holdup is, either ostensibly or in actual fact. And then there’s Boca Chica…
Trump has a conflict of interest with Twitter. He has his own social platform to compete with it. I was sorry to see Devin Nunes leave Congress to join it as I thought he would be a much better choice for Speaker next Congress.
Musk: “I think that was a mistake, because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”
How about–It was plain immoral, hypocritical, and un-American!
Shall “Toupee Detection” be included in your list of categories?
I suspect Nunes felt or was told the he was marked by the GOPe for his early uncovering of the anti-Trump scandal, and besides two Leaders in a row from CA (McCarthy) might have been unpopular. Maybe he’ll go for Di-Fi’s seat in the Senate. open in 2024, which she so far intends to try to retain. Hard to believe she won’t be vulnerable.
Ray, I agree but think California is too far gone.
That’s an interesting thought, Nunes running for the Senate, but it’s still California, so his election would be unlikely. I’m guessing that, with a family, he opted to earn some big money to supplement the family dairy farm income.
Started losing my hair senior year college. Yep, and both maternal grandfathers were bald so I was doomed from the start. Don’t really mind it.
The old school toupe, colloquially “a rug”, is pretty easy to spot. The more modern versions, such as HairClub, weaves, restorations, and surgery, are much more natural looking and more difficult to detect. Trump appears to have a somewhat elaborate comb over. Maybe thin on top but not bald and certainly not a rug.
Yep, and both maternal grandfathers were bald so I was doomed from the start.
I had only one maternal grandfather. The popular prejudice has it that that’s all you get.
My sense is that Musk recognized that the interviewer was attempting to lead his responses and initially expected the intent was to commit him to prioritizing ‘health’ and ‘safety’ concerns. Which may be why he didn’t challenge the claim that Trump sent people carrying ‘nooses’ to attack the Capitol building.
But then it appears Musk realized that Trump’s potential return to Twitter was the target, and the interviewer was attempting to impute necessary conditions for that. That’s when Musk became more emphatic on the ‘moral’ imperative against censorship and the dangers of further dividing channels of political dialog. Then he re-emphasized those points after the interviewer explicitly attempted to solicit his commitment to re-ban Trump in a question injected while he was clarifying what types of content actually necessitate removal.
Also his eyelines and detachment may have been partially explained by the perspective available from the interviewer’s camera – it doesn’t appear he’d have had a good direct view of the interviewer’s face, rather one looking up beneath his chin.
Eventually people will start turning the tables on journalists who behave that way. There is no reason to pretend they are acting in good faith any longer. I’ll enjoy that.
One reason why The Right loves both Trump and Musk is they both have the ability to get right to the point and set The Left into a raging froth.
Musk is not a conservative, and he’s no fan of Trump either. Trump back on Twitter is good for the Twitterverse, and Musk didn’t get to be the richest man in the world by alienating half of his clientele.
Interviewers are members of the MSM, Trust none of them.
After over two years on suspension, in a never-tweeted, but only re-tweeted a couple of Trump tweets account (@TomGreySVK), I was un-suspended a week ago. No explanation either time.
I was on twitter to see what Trump actually tweeted, since the Dem lying media so often “said” what he said, without actual quotes. Usually what he actually tweeted, or actually said in videos, was not the claimed words nor his message.
I have another email, with another Twitter account (@TomGrey56); but like Arnold Kling, think Twitter is more of a time sink than valuable for finding good info.
Recently a long interview with Jonathan Haidt included a lot of talk about twitter. Haidt has lots of good, heterodox things to say – but remains a liberal who often lies, despite his claim to want to talk to both sides. (Among others, he repeats that the Hollywood access tape shows that Trump sexually assaults women – but when a woman allows something, that something is not assault. And Trump claims they allow it, if you’re rich and famous, while implying without claiming that he’s done it. Unlike Tara Reade claiming Biden actually DID grab her pussy – unmentioned by Haidt.)
What is so clearly hypocritical is that Haidt strongly wants to have social media identity verification by the platform, while allowing pseudonyms (like Neo). This stops bots, and reduces extremism (which I agree with – and choose my real name. Safe and retired in Slovakia). Yet his support for Dems pushes him to not mention that Reps want, but Dems oppose, Voter ID to verify legal ability to vote. He probably doesn’t ever think of both ID issues at the same time.
80% good stuff – but still biased.
https://www.persuasion.community/p/jonathan-haidt-on-why-public-discourse?s=r
All Reps should have full audio recordings of everything they say to the press.
(5 am sunrise – good night!)
Re: Jonathon Haidt
Tom Grey:
Good points. I’m a fan of Haidt to find an intelligent liberal halfway willing to acknowledge conservatives as decent human beings and fellow citizens with valid points to make.
However…that doesn’t mean I don’t notice his inconsistencies and blind spots. I’m not familiar enough with him to call him outright a hypocrite and liar. The old fool vs knave dilemma.
Perhaps he’s also a tightrope walker trying to say what truth he can without being canceled in the fascist leftist world which American academia has become.
Touche!
“D’Souza’s ‘2000 Mules’ bypasses cultural gatekeepers to gross over $1M on Rumble in first 12 hours”—
https://justthenews.com/accountability/media/movie-release-alternative-2000-mules-grossed-over-1-million-rumble-first-12
+ Related:
‘Project Veritas lawyer: FBI, DOJ harassing journalists critical of Biden, undermining free press;
‘”Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents are hiding facts, ignoring law, and basically making stuff up,” said attorney for conservative muckraker James O’Keefe.’—
https://justthenews.com/accountability/media/project-veritas-lawyer-fbi-doj-harassing-journalists-critical-biden
“Free-spoken billionaires Musk, Cuban ask SCOTUS to rein in SEC gag orders”—
https://justthenews.com/nation/free-speech/free-spoken-billionaires-musk-cuban-ask-scotus-rein-sec-gag-orders-saying-they
Good for Cuban! In this instance; a very pleasant surprise….
Good post. Wanted to add my take: when the [unprofessional] interviewer kept asking about Trump, he was fishing for a political statement, or at least a headline. It was good of you to watch the interview for context, as the next day’s headline “Musk to give Trump his Twitter account back” was misleading. I saw Musk try to convert the stupid questions into a generic, “will you reinstate all banned users”, and then answer.
Completely ignored from the interview: Musk says how much space is needed for his grid Mega-packs to power the entire US (1 sq mile). Musk IDs the real competitive threat to Tesla (Chinese entrepreneurs and their work ethic).
Those ‘Mega-packs’ (and other battery systems) don’t power anything, of course, they just store power untill when it is needed. You still need to generate the power in the first place, and if you do it with wind and/or solar, you’re talking about a LOT more than 1 square mile for the US.
GE, which makes wind turbines as well as gas generation equipment (and also has a play in nuclear via a joint venture), created a nice visual representation for the relative land use of wind, solar, and combined-cycle gas:
https://www.ge.com/news/reports/talking-about-generation-this-mix-of-technologies-can-lower-the-power-industrys-carbon-0
I joined Twitter shortly after it was founded. Rather quickly, I quit, thinking it all quite silly and a waste of my time. When it started to become “big” I tried again. Same result. I have been off of it for years. I rejoined after the Musk purchase announcement. Kinda a solidarity thing.
Guess what? I now think that it is silly, a waste of time, and more importantly regularly demonstrates the worst side of those posting there.
When I am presented with any post or article that is just a strung together batch of Twitter posts, I just move on.
I am glad Musk is doing what he is doing. It seems like a positive disruption. However, I won’t witness much of it on Twitter, I have better things to do with the ever declining remaining time of my existence.
I could only stand to watch about 5 minutes of the Musk interview. The “careful” manner in which he parses his words is annoying to me, and I just gave up.
That said, I agree that the interviewer has a superior tone that is off-putting right out of the gate. He should be selling used cars. But that is what American journalism has a become: adopt a mind set and reinforce it with your reporting.
Regarding Twitter itself: I joined early to support a business startup I was involved with. Found Twitter a waste of time (except when pushing my business) and quickly abandoned it. Shortly after Twitter was created, it became a go-to place for journalists who were looking for sources of inspiration or reinforcement of their preconceived notions. That was the second strike against it.
And then it began to censor users who didn’t reinforce — or at least follow — the west coast liberal mind set. That was the third strike.
I no longer post on Twitter, and only link to it from other sites like Inman, who are bringing us funny material.
Re Musk’s “careful” manner of expression: it seems to me that he actually has difficulty expressing himself, perhaps due to Asperger’s, which I am not sure is acknowledged or simply alleged. At any rate he clearly has no problem thinking, so perhaps his speech mannerisms are just a symptom of the fact that his brain is roaring away doing a lot more than simply operating his mouth?!
Never paid much attention to twitter until recently….I observe that in addition to all the trash and flame wars, there are quite a few high-quality people who write thoughtful posts. Some of them are:
–Marc Andreessen, entrepreneur and VC…has been writing a lot lately about the importance of free speech.
–Claire Lehmann, publisher of Quillette
–Paul Graham…entrepreneur/VC with many interests (he actually went to art school)
–Ryan Petersen, founder of the digital freight forwarder Flexport, who has been covering the supply chain problems (and has recently been having some fun with a SW tool that allows non-artists to create ‘art’)
–Bethany Mandel, who used to write a lot at Ricochet, has been covering the baby formula shortage (she has 5 kids!)
Musk looks and sounds tired in this video. He’s probably picking his battles. Rather than being drawn into side issues litigating Trump’s hair and conduct on 1/6, which are clearly political, he sticks to explaining his personal position and philosophy about Twitter.
Elon Musk’s LONG interview with the BabylonBee (YouTube) finds people commenting that he’s happiest in that one — compared to all other interviews – from four months ago. (I did also binge on the FT Live one, ABOVE.)
(Apparently, the Bee originally released a shorter…49m? interview. And only later the full one which clocks in at 1hr39m.)
The three Bee guys crack jokes, and Musk gamely soldiers on, delivering serious replies and answers for them. It’s very excellent if you want to get a closer look of his activities, goals, and thinking.
He has the widest and most serious range of interests and experience of any billionaire we’ve had in the public eye before.
Quite formidable. His work ethic is epic; he’s in the league of undaunted like Trump. And he’s a good enough culture icon for the Millennial Gen. (And a vast improvement on their other ‘heroes’.)
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