SANTA MONICA, Calif. – In less than 48 hours after assuming the helm of Twitter, Elon Musk potentially broke both federal and California state labor laws by laying-off employees in possible violation of the WARN Act. NBC reported that a lawsuit was filed against Twitter for not providing a 60-day notice to their employees before letting them go.
This is not the first time Musk has thrown his weight around. The Washington Post reported that in 2020, Musk defied health orders from the state of California when he reopened his Tesla plant in Fremont, California during the pandemic.
While Musk is undoubtedly a very smart person and considered a genius by some, it would behoove us mere mortals to take a step back and ponder what Musk might mean to the United States and the world.
As the owner of Starlink, a company that NPR reports operates at least 2,200 low earth orbit satellites, Musk wields and enormous amount of power. Currently, Starlink provides communication services via Internet bandwidth on their satellite terminals and satellites to the Ukrainian government who – as we all know – are at war with Russia.
In October of this year, Musk posted a Twitter poll outlining his ideas to bring an end to the Russian invasion and war in Ukraine. His poll included ideas such as holding new elections under U.N. supervision, and officially ceding parts of Crimea and Ukraine to Russia.
The Ukrainians to him to F*ck Off.
So Musk controls the flow of information over his satellite network. Is he monitoring those transmissions? Does he have access to sensitive information about the movements of Ukrainian troops? We don’t know.
Now Musk controls and owns Twitter. He sets the rules of communication on the platform. He is able to reach millions of people via the social media platform. In a tweet he made yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Musk told his FOLLOWERS to vote for a Republican congress.
How many of his FOLLOWERS blindly did what Musk told them to do?
In this day and age, do we really think for ourselves or are we being told how to think?
Currently, we live in a manufactured reality where the person with the biggest microphone wins. The person who is able to bombard you with a mediated message that spans all media platforms such as TV, the Internet, and radio has created a mediated cocoon of reality with the express purpose of selling you and selling you a product.
The people of the United States value individualism above all else. Our rugged individualism is what has made Americans exceptional. Musk understands this as he has bucked the system and asserted his individualism time and time again.
It is up to us now to stand-up and reassert our individualism. Let’s start thinking again for ourselves rather than be the FOLLOWERS some people want us to be.
Some content and information by Bloomberg, The Washington Post, NBC, CNN, The New York Times, and Google images.
