WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk and Donald Trump share colossal egos, an incessant desire to be the center of attention, and a platform to showcase their eccentricities and whimsicalities.
Both the Tesla CEO and the former president have used that platform, Twitter, as a sword and a shield — a soapbox to stir up the passions (and wallets) of tens of millions of followers and fend off the other side.
Trump weaponized Twitter before being banned following the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Musk was a persistent Twitter poster, challenging stock market regulators and berating his version of compliance in numerous tweets. Then he decided to buy the platform.
Both now face a reckoning this week, caused at least in part by their use of Twitter to advance their agendas and fuel their outsized identities.
Trump faces the unanimous recommendation of a select congressional committee to the Justice Department on Monday to prosecute him for his part in the January 6 attack on the Capitol by supporters spurred into action that day by his public remarks, on and beyond social media.
Right after that could come Tuesday’s release of Trump’s tax returns, now in the hands of another House panel, which he’s fought for years to keep private.
After firing about half of Twitter’s workforce and wreaking havoc with impulsive and ever-changing policies, Musk was essentially asking users if he should fire himself. In an unscientific poll he set up, a majority of 17.5 million respondents said he should step down as Twitter chief. No word yet whether he will honor the result as promised.
The trials of these two June babies, born 25 years and continents apart, may be unlike anything they’ve ever faced.
“The biggest thing they have in common is little experience of real failure, that is, failure with consequences,” said Eric Dezenhall, a consultant to companies beset by crisis.
“Although Trump has failed several times, he has always been protected by family money and great luck,” Dezenhall said. market.
“Given their life experiences, how can these guys not feel invincible?”
Kindred spirits at least in part, Musk invited Trump back on Twitter shortly after buying it. So far, Trump has stuck to his own platform, Truth Social, which has minuscule reach by comparison.
Musk’s invitation was a selective exercise of the right to free speech, as he also suspended a number of mainstream journalists from Twitter and banned links to “banned” social media sites such as Facebook before giving in somewhat on both fronts.
Musk was until recently the richest man in the world, with the amount verified by the value of his shares. Trump has often argued that he should be considered one of the richest, although there is a mirage behind that claim.
Both have operated from a sense that things begin and end with the CEO’s approval. But Musk has also built viable businesses and real wealth, unlike Trump’s record of self-branding, fraught real estate deals, and questionable ventures involving steaks, vodka, or even his own real estate investor “university.”
Musk records 120 million Twitter followers; Trump, a Republican, had 88 million when he was banned from the platform after the January 6 uprising. The site has greatly boosted both of their voices, in a way that has benefited Musk’s businesses and Trump’s political career over the years, though at the cost of their reputations.
“A hater hellscape,” Musk called Twitter in 2017. But it was also a siren to him.
“On Twitter, likes are rare and criticism is brutal,” he tweeted in 2018. “So hardcore.
“It is awesome.”
On that platform, Musk comes across less as the visionary engineer who made electric vehicles hot, builds reusable rockets, and cares deeply about climate change than as an insignificant settler of personal scores who can sink into right-wing conspiracy theories and misogyny.
A month ago, while teasing Trump for holding out just after Twitter agreed to let him back in, Musk posted an image of a nude woman from the waist up, with the Twitter logo over her genitals and Trump, as Jesus, watching . “And do not lead us into temptation,” Musk’s post read.
Both men have used Twitter to attack the mainstream media, spread misinformation, push the boundaries of what is acceptable on social media, and engage in provocations that make it hard to look away.
But of the two, only Trump held power. For all of his spacecraft, Musk’s universe is much smaller. In the public opinion influence game, it mainly consists of tweets and company policies on how to control them.
Their politics don’t match – for example, Musk’s right-wing and libertarian beliefs are accompanied by a commitment to controlling global warming, while Trump’s is not. Their personalities also differ in some ways – Musk admits mistakes and occasionally even apologizes; Trump doesn’t.
Their work ethic is dissimilar.
Trump, a 76-year-old from Queens in New York City, spends most of his time at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, following a presidency that has seen significant time spent on the golf links. Musk, a 51-year-old native of South Africa who lived in Canada as a young man, is known for working insane hours, today at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco.
But as disruptors, they might as well be twins separated at birth.
“Both guys are free-stylers,” Dezenhall said. “There’s never a plan, never a strategy, just a collection of on-the-fly tactics. This has worked really well for them.
“It wouldn’t be the case for the rest of us.”
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Associated Press writers Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco and Josh Book in Baltimore contributed to this report.
