No, you’re not going crazy—you are indeed seeing way, way more of Elon Musk’s tweets in your Twitter ‘For you’ page lately. If you’re anything like me, you don’t even follow the man, and yet when you open the app, the first tweet you’re seeing is some genuinely painful and cringeworthy meme that Musk has posted, like this one below. And yes—there’s a reason for that. Elon is forcing his staff to boost them.
According to a report from Platformer, Musk is indeed forcing his engineers to drum up more engagement for Musk’s tweets, with the breaking point this time apparently being that Musk’s tweet about the Super Bowl got less engagement than US President Joe Biden’s tweet.
This is grim, grim stuff people. Deeply sad, if reports are true.
Why Elon Musk
Apparently, as Platformer tells it, this all started at 2:36 am on Monday after the Super Bowl, with Musk’s cousin and Twitter employee James Musk sending out a mass slack message with a push notification to all.
“We are debugging an issue with engagement across the platform,” wrote James Musk. “Any people who can make dashboards and write software please can you help solve this problem. This is high urgency. If you are willing to help out please thumbs up this post.”
The problem was when Biden’s tweet, in which he supported his wife for rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles, got 29 million impressions, while Musk’s tweet supporting the Eagles got 9.1 million impressions. The tweet was then deleted, in what some have speculated to be deep shame.
While the Eagles, of course, lost the Super Bowl game, Elon reportedly felt that he had taken the true L.
Musk then threatened to fire the remaining engineers who have not already been fired unless they changed the algorithm to boost his tweets.
The effects were immediate, as Musk’s tweets are apparently flooding the timeline even of people who don’t follow him, which this writer can confirm is also happening to him.
Elon Musk has been obsessed with engagement as of late, even going private to see if that would increase the views of his posts.
This came to an ultimatum to his staff, according to the report: Either boost me or get fired.
“Please stay tuned while we make adjustments to the uh .… “algorithm,” he tweeted.
Elon’s tweets are now getting huge engagement, with one getting 142 million impressions yesterday.
“He bought the company, made a point of showcasing what he believed was broken and manipulated under previous management, then turns around and manipulates the platform to force engagement on all users to hear only his voice,” said a current employee to Platformer. “I think we’re past the point of believing that he actually wants what’s best for everyone here.”
In the mean time, we have a solution.
How to stop the Elon Musk Twitter boost
Step 1, open @elonmusk’s Twitter page.
Step 2, press the top 3 dots o the top right.
Step 3, block @elonmusk
Enjoy!