Thread by @RobertGReeve

I went looking for a logical or ideological consistency to Elon’s decisions about Twitter.

I remembered his chats on Joe Rogan's podcast, just dudes being guys, and that's when it clicked:

the Gen X entrepreneur. 🧵

In a PBS interview during the Bush presidency, Elon said he distrusts politicians generally but loves Reagan.

“Bush is like Reagan without the brains...Reagan actually had strong intellectual underpinnings for his decisive actions.” pbs.org/thinktank/tran…

Reagan said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the Government and I'm here to help.’”

Elon isn't the only Gen X entrepreneur who nods along with that. wired.com/story/reagan-e…

Gen X guys grew up distrustful of establishment liberalism. Youthful anti-authoritarianism led to libertarian values: “don't tell me what I can't do, say, or think.”

The threat—then collapse—of the Soviet Union reinforced belief in free market capitalism; in entrepreneurialism.

In a Rolling Stone interview, Elon basically describes himself as a latchkey kid. He talks about how his parents’ separation affected him and estranged him from his father (“a terrible human being...He will plan evil”). rollingstone.com/culture/cultur…

(There might be a sidebar in here about Gen X's parents. The Silent Generation & early Boomers: independent moms, distant dads.

And how second-wave feminism, reproductive rights, working women, and divorce affected boys like Musk and Rogan, for want of strong male role models.)

Elon—our archetypal Gen X man—is obsessed with the letter X.

Before SpaceX, he co-founded X.com, an online bank that became PayPal.

His kids with Grimes are named X and Exa.

And “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”

The model for “X, the everything app” is WeChat, China's everything app. It's centralized, surveilled, and censored by government authorities.

Gen X doesn't mind centralization when their businesses are at the center. techcrunch.com/2022/10/08/elo…

At first, inconsistencies in Elon's Twitter plans stumped me. $8/mo buys you algorithmic priority? That's not free speech! That's next door to Citizens United!

Then I thought about other Elon stories this week. (Like Trump, every tweet becomes a story.)

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587500060853424129

This decision targets establishment journalism.

Major outlets will cover staff writers' checkmarks, but freelancers will suffer.

And now (hypothetically) groups like Project Veritas could not only request an unban, but could also purchase legitimacy. thehill.com/policy/technol…

On Twitter, the blue check morphed into an arcane symbol of elitism. Elon's tapping into Trumpist populism, another businessman firing up their base by asking “why are THEY so special?”

It seems that to Elon, establishment journalism is Twitter's swamp to be drained.

Elon shared (then deleted) a link to a conspiracy theory about Nancy Pelosi from what's basically a fringe blog stylized to resemble a legit paper: “The Santa Monica Observer.”

https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1586703642073210880

Elon apparently sees stories like these as features, not bugs.

(BTW, the Santa Monica Observer has no checkmark and less than 2k followers...for now.)

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585292083610279936

The Santa Monica Observer updated the Paul Pelosi piece to begin: “At the request of the prosecutors office, my original opinion piece has been taken down.”

But then rewritten article doubles down.

Citizen journalists just asking questions, right? Do your own research, right?

The Santa Monica Observer article that Elon shared is part of the very problem Elon tells advertisers he wants to fix:

“the relentless pursuit of clicks...fueled and catered to polarized extremes”

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585619322239561728

Elon adds: “highly relevant ads are actually content!” This deliberately blurs the line between journalism, yellow journalism, entertainment, corporate and political PR, and commercials

That's the goal of any social media feed. Any content is “good” as long as you stay.

Elon ISN'T dumb. He's torn between two Gen X values:

The libertarian says that in the marketplace of ideas, anyone should be able to say what they want; popular ones get traction.

The entrepreneur understands that moderation is essential to making Twitter a valuable product.

But for the average Gen X guy, free speech is less about the First Amendment and more about South Park.

Trey Parker & Matt Stone are above it all: court jesters satirizing both sides from the sidelines. (They pull it off because they don't hold power.)

Elon wants to be an irreverent satirist like his pals who made PC Principal.

But satire punches up. And as a white guy and the richest man in the world there's BASICALLY NOBODY he can punch up to. He's got more power and influence than entire countries!

Elon's fandom thrives on his idea that the future can be utopian, not dystopian.

This is why Elon fixates on fixing broken systems: everyone can punch up at a broken system. But more importantly, if Elon can fix a broken system, he becomes a hero.

And Elon decided Twitter is a broken system.

When sharing the dodgy article became a news story in itself, he made a “politically incorrect” tweet about establishment news (now also deleted).

(I'm annoyed that the Trump-Tweet-to-News-Story feedback loop begins again with Elon)

Elon and other Gen X entrepreneurs in Big Tech see their actual jobs as cutting through society's Gordian knots, because only they can.

They grew up raging against the machine, and they still think they're doing it even as they become machines themselves. clip.cafe/fight-club-199…

Closing thought: I was writing this thread yesterday when, as if on cue, Elon tweeted a poll.

It's a false choice between free speech and “political ‘correctness.’” They aren't opposites, but in the mind of a Gen X wisecracker, the two can't coexist. 🪡

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587899771091566595

Whew thanks to a Ben Collins retweet, this thread's going places fast. Follow me if you want to escape into storytelling in games, shows, and movies because that's mostly what I tweet for