This week, Elon Musk made headlines, which is usually music to the ears and the monkey-killing brain chip of the Tesla non-founder. But even by Musk's extremely low standards, the recent news reports have been negative, attacking him from a variety of angles, including his ongoing, unsuccessful attempts to acquire or not acquire Twitter, his conflicts with the Ukrainian government, his tacit support for Kanye West's recent antisemitic comments, and, of course, his foul-smelling, pricey hair gel. A terrible week.
In chronological order: As is his habit, Musk is presently attempting to alter reality to fit Twitter's latest claim that he is the subject of a government probe. The reason for this is the ongoing legal battle between Musk and the social networking platform, which has previously been the source of such hits as "Here are some of Elon Musk's text conversations, demonstrating that rich people really do sound that foolish when they chat to each other in private." This most recent claim was made in a filing that was made public yesterday, according to BBC News, in which Twitter, who is suing Elon Musk to get him to back off his long-threatened plans to purchase the service, claimed that Musk's team is withholding information because of "investigative privilege," or the right to keep information secret. We have to provide it to the federal government first, thus we're unable to deliver it to you. In the meantime, one of Musk's attorneys has told the media that Twitter's claim is "misdirection," claiming that the social media company is the one under investigation. This statement may or may not be accurate, but it definitely adopts the "Who smelt it, dealt it" philosophy in relation to multibillion-dollar business litigation.
Meanwhile! By asking the U.S. Department of Defense to begin funding SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet system, which Musk had previously donated to Ukraine (with significant financial support from a number of governments, including the U.S.), Musk is also fighting with Ukraine. This comes after Russia invaded Ukraine in the early stages of the conflict. At that time, Ukraine's internet infrastructure was completely destroyed. You can determine if this choice was unintentionally timed to coincide with rising hostilities between Musk and the administration of the nation after Musk recently made a speech outlining a "peace plan" for the conflict that entails ceding land to Russia. (Roughly at the same time, Nothing says "embrace of peace" like handing the enormous and aggressive military powers of the globe precisely what they want, so he started talking about how Taiwan should give up its independence from China.)
According to Musk, the cost of maintaining Starlink in the nation, where it is utilized for both military and civilian communication, is $20 million a month. This is fair, despite the fact that this newfound focus on saving money comes from a man who is trying to spend billions to purchase a social media network at the same time. It also seems oddly timed with one of the nation's ambassadors ordering him to "Fuck off." The true lesson, in our opinion, is that it might not always be wise to entrust a famously erratic Wario cosplayer with a whole nation's access to a necessary service.
Meanwhile! In addition, Musk continues to draw criticism for his enthusiastic welcome of Kanye West back to Twitter after the rapper was expelled from Instagram for injecting a potent dose of antisemitism into his usual refrain of "Nobody can ever tell me what I'm not allowed to say!" West said on Twitter that he was going to "Death Con 3" Jews, and no, Google, we genuinely didn't intend to say "DEFCON 3," after Musk spoke out loudly in support of the platform West one day aspires to own/not-own. In a subsequent tweet, Musk claimed that he had "spoke to ye today & voiced my worries over his previous post, which, in my opinion, he absorbed. So, I'm glad that's fixed.
Meanwhile! Elon Musk also made a million dollars this week by peddling the ridiculous meme cologne "Burnt Hair," which was purchased by at least 10,000 individuals at a cost of $100 each. (It appears that Ukraine will have internet for three more days.) For the rest of us who have to live in a world where it is a reality, that one is more sad than it is for Musk.