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As a business decision, Elon Musk's purchase of eX-Twitter makes little sense. He grossly overpaid for the platform, by all accounts, and since then he has run the business into the ground. Revenues are now something like 25% of what they were at the platform's peak.
On the other hand, if you think of his purchase of eX-Twitter as "the most expensive political ad of all time," it starts to make a lot more sense. Normally, the people who really love money also really love power. And by buying eX-Twitter, Musk turned a bunch of money he was never going to be able to spend into an enormous amount of power. To a greater or lesser extent, he can demand the ear of politicians and pundits, high and low. And those who do not play ball with him, well, he can excoriate them, or deny them access to his platform, or perform all sorts of other shenanigans.
He is also in a position to be a bully, which he clearly loves. The most recent example involves the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). That is the group that organized a boycott of eX-Twitter, and that is apparently a threat to democracy on par with Hitler and Mussolini, if you believe ex-Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino (who damn well better win this year's Golden Raspberry for Worst Actress). GARM has shut down because it cannot afford to defend itself against the lawsuit filed by eX-Twitter.
There is a small fly in Musk's ointment, however. He may have a lot of power, but he does not control the legal system. Further to that point, Musk might have a Trump-like talent for approaching the line without crossing it in the U.S. However, unlike Trump, Musk's platform is global. And the South African is apparently not so talented at knowing exactly where the line is in countries he's less familiar with.
We say all of this as prelude to running down three different legal problems Musk is currently facing, or may soon face. First up is a lawsuit filed in the U.S. by Yaccarino's (sorta) predecessor, Omid Kordestani. Kordestani worked for 7 years for eX-Twitter, and took a fairly modest salary for a high-ranking executive ($50,000), preferring to receive most of his compensation in the form of stock.
You can probably see where this is going. When Musk took over the platform, he decided that he was not responsible for the liabilities of the previous regime. And so, he not only terminated Kordestani's employment, he's also refusing to pay out the stock, which Kordestani says is worth about $20 million. Yes, we just wrote that Musk is pretty good at avoiding liability in the U.S., but it's hard to see how he wins this one. These things tend to be pretty cut-and-dried, and there's a clear-cut paper trail. It is also the case that Kordestani isn't the only former executive suing Musk, he's just the latest. There are at least four others who say they were stiffed, too.
Moving along, we've made brief reference to the controversy involving Imane Khelif, who unwillingly became part of the latest battle in the culture wars based on the dubious claim from a Russian-backed organization that she is not a woman. Right-wingers, from Donald Trump and J.D. Vance on down, jumped on board with complaints that this is yet another example of liberals wanting men to be able to participate in women's sports. Again, it's actually not that at all—the evidence is very clear that Khelif is a woman and so was participating in exactly the division she should have been participating in.
Given Musk's strong anti-trans feelings, informed significantly by his estrangement from his trans daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson, it is not a surprise that he jumped in with both feet, and posted a bunch of anti-Khelif stuff to eX-Twitter. What Musk knows is that it's pretty tough to get popped for online harassment in the U.S. What he apparently doesn't know is that the rules are rather different in France. Khelif has filed suit with France's National Center for the Fight Against Online Hatred, naming Musk as a defendant (and leaving open the possibility of adding Trump and Vance, as well as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA—bonus schadenfreude!). Depending on how the case proceeds, France could ask the U.S. to extradite Musk, Trump, Vance and/or Greene, so that they can stand trial. Presumably, a Harris-led Department of Justice would be much more amenable to such a request than a Trump-led DoJ.
Further, Musk is also flirting with potential defamation issues in the United Kingdom. MSP Humza Yousaf was previously First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party. Back in 2020, he gave a speech in support of Black Lives Matter, which infuriated Musk. The recent race riots renewed the tensions between the two men, with Musk blaming Yousaf/PM Keir Starmer/immigrants in general for the violence, and Yousaf pushing back against Musk for using his platform to stir the pot, calling him "a dangerous race baiter who must be held to account for his actions." Musk responded by describing Yousaf as a "super racist scumbag" who "loathes white people."
Again, it sure looks like Musk is thinking about American defamation laws, which make it very difficult for a public figure to win such a suit. British law is rather less forgiving. Yousaf can make a fact-based case that Musk is race-baiting, while Musk probably can't make a fact-based case that Yousaf is super racist or that he loathes white people. And so, Yousaf is seriously pondering the possibility of pursuing civil or criminal charges against Musk.
Undoubtedly, most readers have taken note that this is the second time in as many weeks that we chose Musk/eX-Twitter for this feature, not to mention an item in the interim about the failures of the Musk-Trump interview. We're not obsessed; we're really not. We just go where the news, and the schadenfreude, takes us.
In Musk's case, he is very deserving of multiple helpings of schadenfreude. It's not because he is a disagreeable jerk (although he's that, too). It's because he has become an alt-right troll who is spreading some deeply problematic ideas about race, gender, etc. throughout the world with his new toy. Many Americans have abandoned eX-Twitter (if they were ever on it) because they don't like Musk and/or they have other options. But there are many countries who don't have so many options, and where eX-Twitter is still central to political discourse. As Slate's Nitish Padwa points out, Musk is doing a lot of harm in some of those countries (among them the U.K.) with his rhetoric and his promotion of hateful and anti-democratic ideas.
So, we shall feel free to put Musk under the schadenfreude microscope anytime there is news to justify it, because he richly deserves it. (Z)