Our Billionaire Trolls
They can be anything. They choose this.
Mona Charen, Sarah Longwell, and I will lead this week’s edition of Thursday Night Bulwark tonight, May 19, starting at 8:00 p.m. EDT. We’ll discuss the results of the primary races so far and the political news of the day.
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“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” —Probably not Abraham Lincoln or Mark Twain.
As you may have noticed, Elon Musk is tweeting again. Or, rather, still.
The headline in the Washington Post captures our timeline: “Elon Musk, notorious Twitter troll, is now trolling Twitter itself.”
The world’s richest man, embroiled in a complex, high-stakes takeover bid amid the falling share prices of his company, nevertheless takes time out for some social media lulz.
And, of course he is, because we live in an age of sh*tposting billionaires — phallic-obsessed rocketeers, who have decided that they should transform themselves into divas of performative assholery.
It’s good to be f-you rich in an age without guardrails or shame. The mega-rich can pose as populists, create memes, and even assume the personas of emotionally stunted adolescents. When you are a celebrity, they let you do anything, right?
This is, of course, a choice. Billionaires can actually be anyone they want to be. They can be philanthropists, they can be thought leaders, they can measure their words carefully. They can stay silent.
Or they can tweet things like this: