Could Elon Musk’s era spell the end of social media billionaires? | Richard Seymour

Twitter's biggest tryhard has taken over the platform, but the social media industry could be heading for multiple crises

Twitter has been taken over by its least interesting troll for $44bn. When Elon Musk took a stake in the platform, he claimed it was to ensure the future of civilisation" and preserve a common digital town square". Roughly translated, that means the world's richest man has bought his favourite megaphone.

Musk, with 112.1 million followers, is an obsessive Twitter tryhard: the attention economy's biggest attention-seeker. From baselessly calling a British diver a pedo", to his baffling stunt at Twitter HQ - turning up with a kitchen sink and uttering the punchline, let that sink in" - he clearly thinks comedy is his metier. He reminds me of Christopher Hitchens' barb about an enemy: he thinks he's a wit and is half right".