Twitter, for all of its many flaws, was once a vital breaking news service. It is not that now. It’s not entirely clear what it is, beyond a toxic cesspool increasingly made in the twisted image of its deeply unwell owner. Changes to its verified user system, Musk’s decision to open the floodgates to bigots and trolls, and his own presence on the site have destroyed any utility it once had. It is now a source of endless misinformation and propaganda, a place where a pro-Putin conspiracy theorist can become a widely read source for information on the Israel-Hamas war, and where Alex Jones can spew lies about children murdered in schools. This is by design. Musk hates the media, but he also hates the truth and would rather live in a fantasy world in which his many enemies are destroying the world around him. It is, it practically goes without saying, actually Musk who is making the world worse in innumerable ways.
X is hanging on by a thread. After waves of layoffs, there is seemingly almost no one left minding the store. Musk dismantled Twitter’s Trust and Safety team almost immediately. As a result, hateful content often stays up for days, if not longer. The wave of advertiser defections means that the platform is also peppered with advertisements for ridiculous companies and scams. If Musk is still in charge of the platform in a year, it would be a shock. If it exists in a year at all, it would be a surprise.
X features heavily in Musk’s year in review, if only because he has successfully used it as a vehicle to make himself inescapable. But it is not his only venture, and it is not the only reminder that he is actually a deeply stupid and incompetent person. Tesla, his main business, just recalled nearly all of its vehicles because its much-hyped self-driving feature keeps causing cars to crash into people and things. Its much-hyped Cybertruck is unbelievably dumb-looking and pointless: It is bulletproof, for some reason—exactly the kind of silly detail on which Musk would fixate to look cool, even as his cars … keep killing people. The rockets from his rocket company, SpaceX, keep exploding. (Musk says this is a good thing.) Everywhere you look, there is more evidence that Elon Musk is an idiot.