Elon Musk trolls Democrats over Twitter investigation

New Twitter boss Elon Musk has mocked Democrats over their plans to investigate the social media platform now he is in charge.

Elon Musk has hit out at Democrats, mocking party senators who are planning to investigate Twitter now the billionaire has taken over as CEO of the social media platform.

Musk called out the seemingly double standard of the Democrats who want to investigate Twitter but have not shown the same inclination to go after crypto giant FTX after its spectacular collapse.

Earlier this week FTX declared backruptcy after the loss of billions of dollars.

FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down amid reports he had fled the US and accusations he channelled investors funds into his own accounts and funnelled company money into the same as FTX imploded.

Samuel Bankman-Fried, founder and ex-CEO of FTX. Picture: AFP

Musk announced he voted Republican for the first time ever at last week’s midterms, while Bankman-Fried was a big Democrat donor. According to NBC, he donated around US$40 million (A$60 million) during the 2022 election cycle alone.

Musk tweeted the below post in response to the situation.

pic.twitter.com/OjhQJvruTy

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022

On Friday, seven Democrats wrote a letter to the US Federal Trade Commision that read.

“We write regarding Twitter’s serious, willful disregard for the safety and security of its users, and encourage the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate any breach of Twitter’s consent decree or other violations of our consumer protection laws,” the letter read.

TWITTER USAGE HITS ‘RECORD LEVELS’

Hundreds of employees are estimated to have quit Twitter after Elon Musk set a deadline for staff to be “extremely hardcore” or leave the company.

The mass resignation led the company to announce its offices would be shut down and employee badges deactivated until at least Monday.

Musk had already fired half of the company’s 7,500 staff, with the remaining 3,250 expected to be whittled down to less than 2,000, according to a former Twitter employee quoted by BBC.

Twitter headquarters in downtown San Francisco has closed amid a mass exodus of staff. Picture: AFP

CEO Elon Musk gave staff an ultimatum to be “extremely hardcore” or leave immediately. Picture: AFP

In a company poll of 180 employees, about 42 per cent chose Musk’s offer for three months’ severance, 25 per cent chose to stay “reluctantly”, and seven per cent chose to stay and be “hardcore”, according to Reuters.

In a private chat on Signal with about 50 Twitter staffers, nearly 40 said they had decided to leave, a former employee told the wire.

Donald Trump signals he will not return to Twitter after Elon Musk reverses ban

Musk, who was reported to have asked some engineers to remain, celebrated the reports of Twitter’s death in his usual meme style.

“The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried,” he said in a tweet.

“And … we just hit another all-time high in Twitter usage lol. Let that sink in …” he added. “Record numbers of users are logging in to see if Twitter is dead, ironically making it more alive than ever!”

Musk, also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, made radical changes at the social media company after he bought it for USD $44 billion late last month.

pic.twitter.com/rbwbsLA1ZG

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022

He scrapped a work-from-home policy and free lunches amid the crunch of long hours to roll out new services to the site.

“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore,” Musk wrote in the ultimatum.

“This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade,” he added.

Elon Musk has outlined his plan for a “Twitter 2.0” where only the best employees are welcome. Picture: AFP

Staff had been asked to follow a link to affirm their commitment to “the new Twitter” Thursday afternoon local time.

Many of the departing employees took shots at the company on the way out, claiming the site could break over the weekend.

“Entire teams representing critical infrastructure are voluntarily departing the company, leaving the company at serious risk of being able to recover,” an engineer who quit told CNBC.

Former employee, Andrea Horst, whose LinkedIn profile still reads Supply Chain & Capacity Management (Survivor) @Twitter, said tweeted she may be “exceptional”, but “gosh darn it, I’m just not #hardcore.”

On the company’s San Francisco headquarters, a projector hurled insults onto the side of the building calling Musk a “space Karen” and a “mediocre man child”.

Originally published as Elon Musk trolls Democrats over Twitter investigation