During a tweetstorm, Elon Musk has removed both of his companies’ Facebook pages after being challenged to do so by a few of his followers. The pages of both SpaceX and Tesla are now inactive. Each had around 2.6 million followers.
Musk was answering a flurry of tweets this morning when he responded to one from Signal’s Brian Acton, co-founder of the Facebook-owned WhatsApp, that contained the hashtag #deletefacebook. “What’s Facebook?” Musk queried. Afterward, a follower told Musk he should delete SpaceX’s Facebook page if Musk was “the man.” Musk claimed he didn’t even know it existed and then said he would, probably in an attempt to preserve his “the man” status.
I didn’t realize there was one. Will do. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
Definitely. Looks lame anyway. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
Things ballooned from there. After someone showed Musk a screengrab of the SpaceX Facebook page, he noted it was the first time he had seen it and that it would “be gone soon.” Then someone prompted him to delete Tesla’s Facebook page, with Musk responding that it “looks lame anyway.” And just for good measure, it seems that the Facebook page for Tesla-owned Solar City has disappeared as well.
Musk’s massive Facebook troll comes on the heels of a particularly bad week for the social media company. Over the weekend, it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a consulting firm that worked on President Trump’s election campaign, had improperly acquired data from 50 million Facebook users. The backlash has continued since then, with Facebook users showing concern over the disregard for their privacy and government officials demanding answers.
Despite the anti-Facebook stance Musk is taking, SpaceX and Tesla are still alive on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. Perhaps Musk will shun that platform, too — if he is the man.
BlondeJesus on March 23rd, 2018 at 18:40 UTC »
This is what Google+ has been waiting for...
Feroshnikop on March 23rd, 2018 at 17:22 UTC »
This whole social media thing is hilarious.
It's like musical chairs of social media with everyone leaving one site for another.. except the same few companies still own all the chairs.
TooShiftyForYou on March 23rd, 2018 at 16:57 UTC »
It started when Musk replied to a tweet from earlier in the week from WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton, where he tweeted "It is time. #deletefacebook." Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, making Acton a billionaire.
On Friday morning, Musk answered Acton's tweet with "What's Facebook?"
"Delete SpaceX page on Facebook if you're the man?" a fan chimed in.
"I didn't realize there was one. Will do," Musk replied.
In subsequent tweets, Musk reiterated that the SpaceX page "will be gone soon" and that he "literally never seen it even once."
Less than 30 minutes after that tweet, the official Facebook page for SpaceX, along with that of Tesla, vanished.
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