Graydon hosted the 2017 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, which Maye Musk (L), and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attended. … [+]
Ever since announcing his Twitter acquisition, Elon Musk’s name has been regularly trending on the social media platform, as his strange commentary and bizzare business negotiations play out in public, via erratic Twitter posts and poop emojis.
Musk’s latest crusade is against spambots, which he believes make up a higher percentage of Twitter users than the company acknowledges. Musk’s mother, the author, dietitian and model Maye Musk, took her son’s claim very seriously indeed, and started searching Twitter for accounts that post mean comments about her billionaire son, flagging them as potential bots and declaring them to be “nasty.”
It’s already surreal to see one of the wealthiest men on the planet regularly post “dad jokes” on Twitter, but Musk’s mother taking the time to engage with anonymous, low-follower accounts that dare to poke fun of her son, might be weirder than anything Elon Musk has ever posted – and ironically, only amplifies the engagement of said accounts.
Twitter users received the news and offered their commentary.
Maye Musk didn’t stop there, doubling down on her suspicion that the “cyberbullying” of Elon Musk might be astroturfed, despite the union-busting billionaire’s penchant for attracting controversy and criticism.
Despite her best intentions, Maye Musk inadvertently sparked a new hashtag, #PoorElon, which prompted users to sarcastically comment on how “tough” the space-fairing billionaire has it.
Amusingly, this isn’t the first time that Maye Musk has shown a protective streak; she has previously scolded a parody account for spreading rumors about Elon Musk’s love life, after she accompanied him to the Met Gala.
Maye Musk also criticized her son, rather charmingly, for making a joke about the dead.
As #PoorElon continued to trend, Elon Musk sparked even more backlash as he posted a tweet warning the world that the “woke mind virus” could destroy human civilization, echoing the hyperbolic fever dreams of right-wing culture warriors.
Despite Maye Musk’s concerns, her son seems perfectly capable of attracting controversy and “nasty” comments all by himself – without the help of insidious Twitter bots.
