- Elon Musk supporter-turned-critic Laura Loomer says Musk downgraded her Twitter/X account.
- Musk accused Loomer of “attention trolling.”
- It’s a reminder: We’ve seen Musk run Twitter on a whim. Now that he has an important role in politics: will he act the same way there?
Laura Loomer has been kicked off several social media sites, including Twitter. After Elon Musk bought the service in 2022, he reinstated it, along with several others who were fired by the previous Twitter administration.
Now, Lumiere claims, Musk’s service demoted her by stripping her account’s “premium” blue verification status and other benefits. She says Musk took this step because she was critical of his stance on immigration.
You may not be aware of Loomer, who Wikipedia describes as “American.” Far right political active“, conspiracy theorist, and internet personality” — and/or the online rock battle over immigration and racism that erupts between different wings of Trump supporters. If so, it may mean that you have a healthy relationship with the Internet. Good for you.
If you’d like to know more about the latter, my colleague Hassan Chowdhury has an explanation. You may also, at your own risk, refer to your Twitter/X summary From the story.
My point is that you don’t need me to tell you about this.
I simply want to remind you that – if Loomer’s claim is true – this would be par for the course for Musk and his social media company. (Musk did not deny Loomer’s accusations, and told his followers to ignore them because…Interesting trolling“.” I’ve asked her and Twitter/X for additional comment.)
As I mentioned before, the most consistent thing about Musk’s management style at Twitter is that he’s erratic, erratic, and inconsistent.
Sometimes it comes down to relatively small things, like luring Don Lemon to start a talk show on Twitter, then canceling the deal before the show even starts. Sometimes, it’s about very big things — like agreeing to pay about $44 billion to buy Twitter, and then spending weeks in court trying. no To buy it.
However, the only way you could be surprised by things like this at this point is if you never paid attention.
But I think it’s still worth pointing out. Because although Musk’s management style at Twitter hasn’t changed, his responsibilities have.
He is no longer just the richest person in the world, who runs important companies such as Tesla and SpaceX, in addition to Twitter. Musk may now be the most powerful unelected person in America, given his importance to Donald Trump and his next administration.
There’s a role in DOGE, for starters. And the fact that it seems so Trump’s foreign policy management. And he used Twitter to pause a government funding bill this month.
We don’t know how long this arrangement will last, and what kind of impact it will have on Musk. But we know that right now, the man with the power to influence the way the US government operates is the same man who can change the way Twitter is run depending on how he feels at any given moment. We should not ignore that.