Eileen Clancy Profile picture
Big hard questions | Scholarly infrastructure | History of science & computing | M.A. student on hiatus | Archivist | Overly helpful

May 20, 2023, 7 tweets

A threat by a thug against a woman journalist broadcast to his 140 million devotees. When he tweeted it, there were 53K views within 11 min. Now, there are one million views. Don't think it's a threat? Google "swatting."

I just added his threat to the Internet Archive @waybackmachine in the event it happens to disappear. You too can back up threats using Wayback's handy extension for most browsers.

For clarity, EM is *also* responding to another person. I cut them out because I didn't want to give them more oxygen. A guy dunks on a reporter. EM responds with "Call the SWAT team on this one." 1) EM frequently sics his trolls on reporters. 2) Takes advantage of "just a joke."

EM could've said "cops." He chose "SWAT." For his 4/8chan brethren that's easily read as "swatting." Again, history is key. In 2018, a Tesla whistleblower was swatted via Tesla's security dept, the very same day Tesla filed a lawsuit against him.
salon.com/2019/03/13/elo…

This 2019 Businessweek story has the details. EM got paranoid about an internal whistleblower and sicced a "team of investigators on him. Tesla security told police he was planning a mass shooting. Oops. Not true.

Billionaire files a lawsuit against you. Same day, cops show up thinking you are a mass shooter. Yikes. In the interest of people being to read the details, here is a link bypassing the paywall.
archive.is/20230409145959…

Businessweek says documents and interviews revealed, "Musk set out to destroy him." "Tesla’s PR department spread rumors that Tripp was possibly homicidal." And, Musk falsely tweeted a suggestion a woman reporter took bribes. Do I think he would hide a threat in a joke? Yes.

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