Elon Musk is having a rough Friday. The new owner of Twitter has fired over half of the 7,600 employees that used to work for the social media company. And it doesn’t stop there.
The new owner of Twitter has accused “activist groups” of pressuring advertisers despite what he says are unchanged content moderation policies. Advertisers and companies have decided to push pause on their advertising on Twitter in light of Musk’s ownership and his comments surrounding content moderation.
Enter Hank Green, the YouTube polymath and founder of VidCon who suggested that advertisers holding off from Twitter was Musk’s own doing.
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“You tweeted a conspiracy theory from a website less credible than the National Enquirer like four days ago. We all need to look inward as well as outward,” Green wrote.
He was referring to the October 28 incident when former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton accused Republicans of kowtowing to conspiracy theories in a tweet with reference to the attack on Paul Pelosi. Musk replied with a link to the Santa Monica Observer which suggests that Paul Pelosi was injured as a result of a fight between him and a male prostitute he was familiar with. Musk deleted the Tweet soon after and later accused the New York Times of running a false article about his tweet.
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Musk then asked Green if Twitter “should die” to which the host of the SciShow said, “Of course not! It’s just…it’s too simple to attribute this to “activists” when advertisers (who have lots of incentives to be cautious) are given reasons to be cautious. You wield a lot of power, and (IMO) it would be very good for Twitter for you to do it more thoughtfully.”
In typical fashion, the tech billionaire asked the YouTuber to “try a Google search.”
Earlier today, after being tweeted incessantly about the layoffs, Musk explained the rationale saying that the company was losing $4 million a day and that those who had been fired had been offered 3 months of severance.
