Archived version: https://archive.li/Yg8r8
My favorite part:
But while his reaction the day after learning that X was commandeering his handle was extreme frustration, Vaught told Ars that the platform will remain his primary form of social media.
“it’s highly annoying, but Twitter is still my preferred social media,” Vaught said. “That’s how I communicate and learn my news about what’s going on. Nothing else compares.”
His only “minor protest” to X’s action, he said, was to cancel his Twitter Blue subscription.
Vaught is mostly a Musk fan, as he’s interested in Musk’s electric cars and space developments. He said that this experience with X hasn’t tainted his opinion of Musk or his relationship too much with X as a platform. He’s holding out hope that Musk has a long-term plan for where Musk is taking X, but like many users, he’s struggling to adjust to the rebranding.
I’m starting to suspect you weren’t just ‘genuinely asking’
I genuinely don’t know what started all this. He used to be quite popular person but then something changed and seemingly everyone started hating him. I couldn’t explain why and thus my question.
Yes, he was quite popular at one time. It was clearly a well-groomed bit of PR that he was this eccentric billionaire who was using his wealth to forward science and technology for all mankind.
Then it turned out that he’s a narcissistic man-child. The mask slipped for me personally when he called that diver rescuing the Thai kids a pedo. His outrageous manipulation of crypto markets came next (exploiting the lack of regulation). Since then, his purchase of Twitter and treatment of Twitter employees has been a staggering shitshow from start to finish. It has absolutely shattered any illusion that he is a good businessman and he’s certainly not a good person.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/elon-musk-twitter-terrible-things-hes-said-and-done
The diver was my point also. Nobody that primarily cared about the well being of those kids would behave way Musk did. All he cares about was trying to play hero for the optics and when it went wrong, for his ego, his mask came off.
I don’t know if he’s “always” been on the right politically but he’s definitely been way more outspoken since he acquired Twitter. And it’s not just a matter of “we hate him because he’s conservative”. No, we hate him because, like any modern conservative, he openly denigrates trans people, blames Fauci for the pandemic, and he continually overlooks or forgives users for racist and hateful remarks.
Before I left Twitter I also saw a few examples of the “fact checking” system calling out tweets from liberals (for very minor distinctions) and not adding disclaimers to easily debunked claims like hiring 87000 IRS agents.