Chapter 91: Rabbit Holes: Twitter, December 2022

In December 2022, Musk's acquisition of Twitter unravels amid escalating controversies. A stalking incident involving his young son X triggers Musk to suspend the @elonjet tracking account and suspend journalists covering the decision, prompting backlash even from allies like Bari Weiss. His impulsive posts—including a joke about prosecuting Dr. Fauci—compound damage to Twitter's brand and advertiser relationships, while his targeting of former Twitter executive Yoel Roth incites online harassment.

A stalker following Grimes and X near their Los Angeles home prompts Musk to blame the @elonjet account, which tracks his jet's public flight data, for enabling the threat. Despite earlier pledging to protect free speech and defend @elonjet, Musk suspends the account and arbitrarily bars journalists including Ryan Mac, Drew Harwell, and Taylor Lorenz for covering the decision—claiming their links to @elonjet constitute doxing. Bari Weiss, compiling the Twitter Files, privately challenges Musk, warning he is replicating the previous regime's arbitrary censorship. When the story spreads on Twitter Spaces, Musk joins a live audio discussion defensively, Harwell challenges him on censorship hypocrisy, and Musk shuts down all Spaces for a day. A user poll shows 58 percent support for restoring the journalists' accounts, and Musk complies. Days later, in the hot box at Twitter, Musk jokes about his pronouns being "Prosecute/Fauci" and impulsively tweets the quip, drawing criticism from his brother Kimbal and others for mocking transgender people and fueling conspiracy rhetoric against the eighty-one-year-old health official. The tweet echoes conspiracy thinking from his father Errol, who has spent years promoting false COVID narratives. Musk then amplifies conspiracy posts by antivaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr. In fallout from the Twitter Files, Musk targets Yoel Roth's doctoral dissertation and 2010 tweet, insinuating pedophilia connections that incite homophobic and anti-Semitic harassment forcing Roth to leave his home. CEO David Zaslav warns Musk his erratic behavior damages brand partnerships, and the Tesla board expresses alarm that Musk's Twitter conduct is hurting Tesla's stock, which has fallen from $340 to $156 per share.