Elon Musk’s desperate ego
If you logged onto Twitter Monday morning and wondered why your feed consisted of one Elon Musk tweet after another — even if you aren’t a follower of Musk — then wonder no more. It turns out that Elon Musk himself was responsible for the sudden rain of tweets, as mystifying and unexpected as the rain of frogs from the movie “Magnolia.”
Here’s what happened: Super Bowl Sunday Elon was joyfully frolicking with Rupert Murdoch in his private box and contemplating a Twitter Thousand-Year Reich, when he sent out a tweet in support of the Philadelphia Eagles. Then the unthinkable happened. He noticed that President Biden also put out a tweet supporting the Eagles. And — horror of horrors! — Biden’s tweet was getting more “likes” than Elon’s tweet!
This was an indignity not to be borne! Musk hopped on his environment-murdering private jet and flew at top speed to Twitter headquarters, rushed in at two in the morning, dragged some sleepy Twitter engineers out of bed and demanded that they “fix” this tragic oversight!
Musk even fired one engineer for daring to suggest that this outrage happened because some people (not all, mind, but some) actually loved Biden more than they loved Musk! That engineer was summarily executed for the unforgivable crime of substandard zeal in his adoration of the Dear Leader. Rest assured, no one else made the same mistake.
What remained of his feverishly busy little workers worked busily feverish for the remainder of the night, tinkering with the Twitter algorithm and looking for artificial ways to undo this crime against the natural order of things. Twitter users whom Musk had previously blocked were suddenly unblocked. Feeds that heretofore had nothing to do with Musk suddenly had everything to do with Musk. If the Twitterverse was wanting in Musk worship then, by God, Musk was going to jolly well do something about it!
And so something about it he did. This needy, little, silly, pitiful man boosted his likes, and suddenly all was well again for his giant ego. Elon Musk artificially manufactured the love he was so painfully desperate for.
And yet this “genius” missed the real reason for the cause of his loneliness, and he missed the solution that an eight year old child could have figured out. If it was love Musk was looking for he could have had it easily. He could have quietly and humbly used his vast fortune to help people and animals and the environment. Then he would have naturally attracted love and admiration. Instead he thought with his paranoia and his neurosis instead of his much-promoted brain, and in the end he got neither.
There are eight million stories in the naked city of MAGA stupidity. This has been one of them. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.