Twitter Inc. made headlines this week when it suspended the account of Aaron Greenspan, a well-known critic of Tesla Inc. and its CEO Elon Musk. See Next: This Startup Invented Programmable, Drinkable Plastic That Dissolves In Water In 60 Hours Greenspan, founder of PlainSite, found his online presence abruptly disrupted on June 13. The suspension of his account, which had more than 24,000 followers, raises questions about freedom of speech and online censorship. Ironically, Twitter claims defen
Even before gaining control of Twitter, Musk would take a proactive approach to addressing criticism.
Back in 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk actively monitored Twitter for tweets containing the hashtag $TSLA, often used by Tesla short-sellers. Musk would reach out to executives at companies to investigate employees who were potentially publishing negative tweets about his electric vehicle company.
During that time, Musk reportedly emailed former Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess in July 2018, questioning whether one of Diess’s employees was using Twitter to criticize Tesla anonymously. Business Insider later reported that Volkswagen determined the tweets were posted by the employee’s brother.
Musk also allegedly texted Lawrence Fossi’s employer. According to the WSJ, on July 23, 2018, Musk sent a text to the top executive at Fossi’s company, asking the boss whether he knew his employee, known on Twitter as Montana Skeptic, “was obsessively trashing Tesla via a pseudonym,” as disclosed in the report.
Musk would reach out to executives at companies to investigate employees who were potentially publishing negative tweets about his electric vehicle company.
Straight from the article, for anyone wondering.
Did any of them ever care?