In 2023, Elon Musk continues to be a technology name that consumes a lot of ink and appears constantly in the press. Every move of the "talented but flawed" billionaire is closely followed and receives great attention.
Musk's brother, Kimbal, told Walter Isaacson, author of the Elon Musk biography published in September 2023, that his sibling was a "magnet for gossip."
Challenge Mark Zuckerberg
Musk challenged the Facebook founder to a fight after Meta revealed plans to launch a Twitter rival called Threads. Zuckerberg accepted the challenge on Instagram with a simple sentence: “Send me your location.”
Italy’s culture minister even said he was in talks with Musk about arranging the fight at a historical site there. However, Musk’s mention of a shoulder problem that may require surgery at the same time suggests he’s not taking the fight seriously.
Zuckerberg deemed Musk insincere and withdrew in August 2023. He posted on Threads: “I think we can all agree that Elon is not serious and it is time to let it go.”
Change Twitter Name
When he bought Twitter in October 2022, Musk tweeted “the bird is free.” In July, he announced that Twitter would be renamed X, dropping the famous “blue bird” logo.
It’s part of Musk’s vision to transform social media into an “everything app.” He wants to emulate WeChat, the super app that offers everything from messaging to ride-hailing to bill payments.
Beyond the name change, there’s no clear evidence of a deep transformation at the platform. X remains reliant on advertising and isn’t the diversified business Musk hoped it would be.
According to Bruce Daisley, Twitter’s former head of Europe, rebranding only works if the company is committed to being better and kinder. But X just represents toxicity.
Recruiting new CEO for X
Musk capped off a stormy 2022 by announcing that he would step down as CEO of Twitter once he found “someone stupid enough to take the job.” In May 2023, he named Linda Yaccarino, global head of advertising at media giant NBCUniversal, as CEO of X.
Yaccarino is a respected figure in the advertising industry. His appointment reflects the importance of advertising to X’s business model. Advertising accounted for 90% of Twitter’s revenue in 2021, although the rate of “defection” from X has increased sharply since Musk took over.
Brands are boycotting X over a range of concerns, including its management of hate speech and Musk's leadership style.
The new CEO of X is struggling to recover lost revenue, in no small part due to Musk's behavior.
Biography launch
Elon Musk's biography, written by Isaacson, was published in September 2023. It is the product of Isaacson's two years of observation.
The book contains many previously revealed details about Musk, such as his poor relationship with his father and his concerns about artificial intelligence, but also shares many new things.
However, one of the most prominent stories in the biography was denied by Musk himself, regarding the Starlink satellite in Russia. Isaacson later had to explain and correct it.
Start delivering super pickup truck (cybertruck)
Tesla, Musk’s electric car maker, will begin delivering its Cybertruck – a one-of-a-kind pickup truck made from stainless steel – to customers in November 2023. Musk said the design of the vehicle was inspired by the 1997 James Bond film. “The future finally looks like the future,” he said at the delivery event.
The Cybertruck starts at $60,990, but the top-of-the-line version costs $100,000.
Brands flee from X
X’s revenue woes deepened in November 2023 when an anti-Semitic controversy arose on the platform. First, the US advocacy group Media Matters said it had found ads from companies including IBM, Apple and Oracle alongside anti-Semitic content on X. Then Musk expressed support for the anti-Semitic post.
Apple, IBM and Disney were among the brands that suspended advertising, prompting Musk to explode in anger. “If someone is trying to blackmail me with advertising, with money, go away,” he said at an event in New York.
X is also suing Media Matters and the Center for Countering Digital Hate over their research into the platform. X’s 2023 ad revenue is expected to halve, to $2.5 billion this year from $4.5 billion in 2021, according to Bloomberg.
Re-entering the AI race
In March, Musk and a number of tech experts, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, signed an open letter calling for a six-month moratorium on the development of powerful AI systems. That didn’t happen. In fact, in July, Musk decided to re-enter the race with a new company: xAI.
Musk said his system would be safe because it was “incredibly curious” about humans. The first xAI product was Grok, a chatbot that mocked its creator as a “big kid.”
Musk also attended the global AI safety conference in the UK and warned that the technology is “one of the biggest risks to humanity”.
False information gets X into trouble
In December 2023, the EU opened an investigation against X under the Digital Services Act (DSA). X is suspected of violating its obligations to combat illegal content and disinformation.
The EU raised a warning when X reported on Hamas attacks on Israel. On October 10, authorities informed X that the platform was “being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU.”
According to Nic Newman, a researcher at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, X is no longer the trusted source of information it once was. “Twitter has become a shadow of its former self. It is becoming less useful to journalists and to people as a place to find, discuss and share news. One of the main reasons for this is the rise of hate speech, as has been shown in numerous studies,” he said.
(According to The Guardian)
Source
![[Photo] Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chairs Government Conference with localities on economic growth](https://vstatic.vietnam.vn/vietnam/resource/IMAGE/2025/2/21/f34583484f2643a2a2b72168a0d64baa)
Comment (0)