I was at the centre of an Elon storm – and survived
From the long hunt for a serial killer and an ambush in the African jungle to “death knocks” and emotionally fraught interviews, this special series reveals the unseen events and unforgettable moments that still stick in the memories of Age reporters.
By David Swan
When you wake up to hundreds of Twitter notifications, it’s generally not for something good.
It’s happened to me only once before, about five years ago. Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes didn’t like a story that had my name on it, and a late-night tweet from the billionaire criticising the story took off, racking up dozens of tweets of support.
This time, it was nuclear. And it came from the world’s richest and most thin-skinned man, Elon Musk.
“I predict that the Sydney Morning Herald will continue to lose readership in 2025 for relentlessly lying to their audience and boring them to death,” Musk wrote, in response to a screenshot of David Swan’s article posted by one of his followers.Credit: AP
I was working from my parents’ beach house, during a sunny day on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. It was a Sunday – already typically a relatively quiet day for news – and it was the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, which is even quieter.
I spent the day writing a piece I’d been marinating on for a while: my tech predictions for 2025. It was pitched as a fun and relatively lighthearted, but still ultimately sincere and informative run-down of what was to come over the next 12 months.
Each prediction was by no means guaranteed, but certainly possible and could be justified with evidence: cryptocurrencies continuing their rampant upswing, AI going through a difficult period, Trump’s tariffs wreaking havoc on electronics prices.
I was nearing the end of writing the piece when I thought to myself: what will Musk be up to?
Surely, any technology prediction piece worth its salt will need to address whatever the world’s wealthiest – and arguably most influential – man does next year.
One answer seemed obvious. The incessant tweeting, the controversies and constant outrages, the demanding role in Donald Trump’s incoming administration, and a decline in vehicle sales will all collectively catch up to Musk, whose workload already was unsustainable. He’ll be forced to resign from Tesla – a company he didn’t found despite what many think – and hand the reins over to a steadier hand.
I wrote as much, and filed the story, which was published online a couple of hours later.
From there it was business as usual. Watching the rest of the day’s cricket on TV, eating fish and chips for dinner, bathing our son and putting him to bed. I didn’t hear anything until the next morning, when I woke up at 6am to the avalanche of notifications.
“Oh my god,” I remember saying to my still-asleep wife. “Elon’s tweeted it.”
He sure had.
“I predict that the Sydney Morning Herald will continue to lose readership in 2025 for relentlessly lying to their audience and boring them to death,” Musk wrote, in response to a screenshot of my article posted by one of his followers.
Musk’s tweet had been “liked” more than 2000 times. It had about 300 retweets and more than 200 replies, most of whom were in fierce agreement with the hypersensitive executive.
Elon Musk’s tweet predicting a difficult year for the Sydney Morning Herald.Credit: Twitter
Musk’s army variously described me as a moron, a liar, insane, a bullshit artist, and fake news trash.
Thankfully, having endured a social media storm before, I was prepared.
I instantly turned off X notifications and didn’t spend too much more time scrolling through what Musk’s followers were saying. Social media notifications drive surges of dopamine, designed to keep us coming back to check Facebook and X every few minutes, but having hundreds of constant notifications didn’t equate to an avalanche of dopamine. It was just noise – a lot of noise – and I found it relatively easy to just switch off.
Colleagues and friends began texting to check if I was OK. I was – I wasn’t taking it personally. I hadn’t gotten anything wrong, for example – going viral for making a mistake would be bad – and I still stand by every word that I wrote.
To be honest, I found it exhilarating.
The Daily Mail story on David Swan after his story was targeted by Elon Musk. Credit: Daily Mail
My family was bemused but slightly stressed that Musk’s followers might “dox” us – collect and reveal our private information like where we live – given how militant and terminally online Elon stans can often be. It was a valid concern.
For me, things got more stressful – and surreal – when my friends began texting screenshots of my face on rival news outlets. I was the Daily Mail’s top story for about an hour. “Elon Musk launches savage attack on Aussie newspaper”, their headline read. News.com.au, The Daily Telegraph and The Nightly quickly followed suit, as did others.
I started mulling what I should say if a news outlet came to me for comment, and though it was my day off, I checked in with colleagues to make sure no editors were upset at my becoming a news story. They weren’t. The piece had already become one of my most well-read in weeks, gaining a significant bump in global readership thanks to Musk.
The outrage cycle – if that’s what you would call it – lasted about 24 hours. Musk, his followers, and the local press moved on to the next thing, as I’d assumed they would. A few radio stations and podcasts were interested in talking about it, but I declined. I’m generally uneasy being the story – our jobs are to document the news, not become it.
I think there are a few lessons and observations from what I now dub my own Elongate.
Firstly, there’s a loud and visceral reaction to every post and utterance that comes out of the man. Musk has more than 200 million followers – about 2.5 per cent of the global population – and the daily news cycle, particularly the technology news cycle, is dominated by whatever he says on any given day.
A story on David Swan’s story also led the Sky News website.Credit: Sky News
To me, and I’m sure to many, that’s exhausting, and we would be well served to tone down Musk and surface other voices, as difficult as that can be. Musk has achieved a lot and I respect much of what he’s done, but his descent into right-wing provocateur has been tiring. I’m getting a bit over him and his shtick, to be honest, despite what you might assume by my penning this piece.
Secondly, being in the middle of an outrage can feel long, even never-ending, in the moment. But they do end, and often quickly. In this 24-hour news and social media cycle, not to mention our collective short attention span, there’s always something next.
People move on, and that’s something to tell yourself if you ever find yourself making headlines. The saga was also a healthy reminder of what we do as journalists to other people every day, positive or negative: putting their names and faces online and in the newspaper for millions to see.
Elon Musk speaking at the presidential inauguration parade in Washington on Monday.Credit: Bloomberg
Third, Musk has a point. Well, not exactly. Our subscriber base is growing, not declining: in August Nine revealed the total number of subscribers for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane Times and The Australian Financial Review grew 8 per cent in the previous financial year to more than half a million.
Further, neither I nor this masthead will be boring readers to death in 2025, or relentlessly lying to them. But what Musk tapped into is a deep disdain for mainstream media among a certain subset of the population; that’s something that I and the rest of my colleagues globally need to grapple with.
We’re not perfect, to be sure, but I’d argue the animosity that comes our way these days is unwarranted. Bashing journalists can be a bit of a sport, like bashing lawyers, politicians or parking inspectors. If journalists and publishers are to remain relevant, we need to find a way to remain connected with all segments of society, including Musk fanatics.
It was fun, and in a way validating, to find myself at the centre of an Elon storm. I won’t be trying to make a habit of it. I also won’t be shying away from making bold predictions, tackling important issues or picking fights with billionaires when necessary.
Musk might have one of the world’s most fragile egos, but I certainly don’t, and we’re going to need more people standing up to him if we don’t want to blindly follow his every whim.
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