The phrase "billionaire shows his whole ass on social media" used to be just a metaphor. It may soon be a headline, judging by the direction Jeff Bezos is going.
You don't need to follow Bezos closely to see what's going on. The second-richest person in the world seems to be copying the low-rent antics of the richest person in the world. The kids say that Bezos' attempts are cringe, but his timing is weird. On the same day that Musk pledged his vote to the all-in-on-authoritarianism GOP, he sent out a ass.
Musk predicted that the political attacks on him would intensify in the coming months. This created a path to blame Musk's bad luck for the rest of the year, from the collapse of his on-hold takeover to the ongoing tanking of his company's stock. On Wednesday alone, Musk lost $12 billion; investors seem to prefer CEOs who don't fire off bizarre statements about a "woke mind virus".
Musk was sounding more like a business showman from recent history, one who rode his own right-wing populist train to a terrifying destination, while going bankrupt several times along the way. After praising his own ass and lashing out at public spending, Bezos seems bent on following Musk into the oblivion.
The world's richest individuals both went full Trump in the same week, and while Musk vows to restore Trump's account should his takeover actually happen, probably won't take us anywhere good. It allows us to come up with a grand unified theory of Rich Guy Brain, and why it shouldn't be allowed anywhere near Twitter, for the sake of the brains' own reputations.
Two of the most stunning self-immolations in history are live and in real time. You continue to play yourselves.
Studies show that the wealthier you get, the more likely you are to act like a jerk. Since divorcing his wife, Bezos has become a mega-yacht owner with a midlife crisis who likes to dress like Pitbull, and Bezos watchers have been shaking their heads at how much of an asshole the guy has become in recent years.
The book showed that Musk had been on a decline. Over the course of a decade of stunning wealth growth, the soft-spoken Burning Man attendee with an earnest desire to fight climate change became a tin-eared Texas mogul who actually wants to boost oil production.
We are sadly used to Musk's shenanigans now. He called a British cave diver a "pedo guy" in the year he refused to help with Musk's submarine idea. At the same time, with the help of his girlfriend, he was dropping musical tributes to Harambe and describing himself as a socialist.
There is little evidence of playful mutability these days. Indeed, newly proud Republican Musk seems to be spending most of his time trying to delight the army of troll and Trump fans that hang on his every tweet, coming up with ever more shocking ways to own the libs. It is odd that Musk is paying more attention to the troll than his own shareholders, who are scared and want an emergency stock buy back.
Musk pointed out that most of the most-followed accounts on the service are less active as time goes on. According to the Washington Post, there is a reason for that: no matter what you do on social media, you are in danger of being targeted. Musk's approach to moderation would make the problem worse, and he's Exhibit A for what happens when you treat the bully as your own fan base.
You can get high on your own sycophantic supply. The other guy who went down this dark path was rich and they let him do anything.
Doing it for the warped love of his fellow keyboard jockeys is as good a reason as any to explain why Musk took credulous bankers with him for the ride. The investors don't think the sale will go through. They are not buying the stock even though it is below $40 a share. When Musk claimed the deal was on hold, the stock price of the company went up.
Musk is acting like someone who desperately wants out while saving face. The billionaire put the deal on hold while claiming he discovered that more than 5% of the accounts are fake.
This would be troublingly Trump-like, even if Musk wasn't also tacking rightwards at alarming speed. Musk was silent when the video of the white supremacist Buffalo shooter was streamed across social media. Musk clutched his pearls after Project Veritas released an interview with an engineer who claimed his colleagues were prostitutes.
You might think that Jeff Bezos, Musk's rival in space and on the world's richest people list, would prefer to sound like the voice of reason. After all, Bezos has had battles with both Trump and the National Enquirer. Right-wing populism is the way to go according to Bezos. The Amazon founder picked a fight with the Biden administration by saying that its spending was to blame for high inflation.
When Team Biden pointed out that Amazon needs to pay its fair share in corporate taxes, Bezos mocked it as a distraction, likening it to Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty. The rising tide of unionization that Amazon is doing its best to block is one way for Bezos to distract from his own increasingly untaxed mega-wealth.
It is possible that the guy is jealous of the libertarian army Musk has gathered under the banner of his Twitter account, and either no one in his inner circle has the guts to tell him why he shouldn't be, or they are.
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The Streisand effect is a good argument that heads might consider using. Bezos risks making it look like a better and better idea to tax the rich, for real, every time he makes a dumb or controversial statement on social media. Bezos should be sentenced to funding universal healthcare for calling the founder of Doge coin a sh*tposter. I need to remind you why anyone should need more than a billion dollars.
Musk and Bezos have not fallen victim to Rich Guy Brain. Their increased dickishness and rightward drift could be a cover, an attempt to get out ahead of what could well be a good year for the GOP in Congress. They might think that by getting Republicans to love them, they could be able to moderate the party's stance on civil rights and democracy. They might think that turning off customers who made them the wealthiest individuals in the world is worth it.
billionaires should follow the advice that has been a meme on social media since it's earliest days: never use it.
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