Many think he is brilliant while many strongly disagree with this assessment, but there is no doubt that he is very rich and very famous. For a wide range of reasons, entrepreneur, inventor, would-be space coloniser Elon Musk has a huge social media following. It goes without saying that everything he does and says is scrutinised, commented upon, and debated. When he announced that he was going off Twitter for a while, his 35M+ followers had varied reactions.
Elon Musk announced that he would be going off Twitter for a while. There was no explanation or reason given.
Predictably, there were tens of thousands of responses and retweets. We'll take over from here, said the tweeple.
Given the man's preoccupation with the planet Mars, many wondered whether he was off to another planet; and whether there's any phone signal on Mars.
Musk has a lot of fans; but his critics equal or even outnumber those fans.
Very happy!
Because earth is a not-very-nice place to be in, right now.
There are those who think the man is something of a programmed robot; in other words not very human.
People were curious about the Twitter sabbatical and wondered whether he was going off to get himself a system upgrade.
Musk is seen as combative and entitled by a lot of people – this tweet describes him as Space Karen (reference to the Karen memes used to describe demanding/entitled people).
Musk announced the birth of a son recently. He is constantly speaking about space travel and the colonisation of Mars. He seems to have a lot going on.
Musk tends to shoot his mouth off about a lot of stuff and is known to be in the eye of some legal storms. His lawyers are likely quite relieved about his Twitter sabbatical. Remember the Thai Cave Rescue incident?
It’s good to get offline now and then, isn't it?
While some asked whether he’d be gone a few hours some thought that this was just a ploy; that he wasn’t going off at all.
Great idea, thought some.
Some don’t care. At all.
Some said that they would miss him. Others wondered whether it seemed impossible to leave social media without making a big announcement about it.
Some want him to return
Elon Musk has not endeared himself to Americans in wake of the recent protests following the killing of George Floyd – an unarmed African American man in an incident of police brutality. While other celebs came out in support of #BlackLiveMatter to protest systemic racism, he distanced himself. Musk also attracted criticism for pressuring the government to permit employees to return to work even during the coronavirus lockdown. So if Elon Musk is off Twitter right now, the general consensus about this seems to be good riddance.
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