The Players:

• Donald Trump, the man who has just secured his second term in office, returned to the familiar greens of his own golf club. This wasn’t just any golf day; it was at the same location where he had faced a harrowing assassination attempt just months prior. His presence on the course was a testament to his resilience, a message that he remains undeterred by threats against him.
• Elon Musk, the entrepreneur whose innovations and businesses have reshaped industries from automotive to space travel, has increasingly entwined his fate with American political currents. His significant financial support through America PAC and his active role on social media platform X during Trump’s campaign cannot be understated. His presence alongside Trump signifies not just a personal friendship but a partnership in the broader narrative of American politics.

The Game:

Reading Between the Greens:

• Political Strategy: Golf has historically been a setting for informal yet significant political discussions. What was discussed between swings? Were they talking about policies, or was it mere banter? Whatever the content, the image of unity between these two figures speaks volumes about their alignment.
• Future Implications: With Musk’s endorsement coming not just in financial contributions but also in public support, what role might he play in Trump’s administration? Trump’s commendation of Musk as a “star” during his victory speech hints at a future where Musk’s influence might extend into advisory or policy-making roles.
• A Symbol of Continuity: For Trump’s supporters, this game of golf symbolizes continuity and stability. It’s a visual that Trump remains active, engaged, and surrounded by allies even as he prepares for his next term.

Conclusion:

As details of Silicon Valley Bank’s closing were coming out, Elon Musk showed interest in buying it and converting it into a digital bank after the suggestion was made by Twitter user, Min-Liang Tan.

I’m open to the idea

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2023

Giving no further details on his comment, reactions were mixed. Kevin Paffrath, CEO of HouseHack praised the idea, saying:

“What an opportunity. 2-3 years to get a banking charter otherwise. Just make sure you go through those toxic assets with a fine-tooth comb!!”

Tesla investors, on the other hand, are worried that Musk would have to sell stock to purchase SVB. This happened when he had to sell shares to buy Twitter which in turn lead to Tesla’s stock dropping 60% last year.

There have been no further developments on whether Musk still plans to buy Silicon Valley Bank. As mentioned earlier, Elon Musk did buy Twitter, so it is not completely out of the realm of possibility. He was also one of the creators of PayPal back in 1998 so he is not completely out of his depths.

An interest in acquiring Silicon Valley Bank could be fueled by his interest in adding a payment method to Twitter’s platform. According to the Financial Times, Twitter has made attempts to obtain a regulatory license and create payment software earlier this year.

“We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”

The email also stated that employees will be notified of their termination by their professional or personal email account.

Since this email was sent out, an employee described reactions as “It’s total chaos, house melting down…”

Their reaction is justified. Before Musk officially bought the company, Twitters general counsel told employees that they should not dwell on rumors of an employee mass exodus. There has also not been any direct communication to employees like this since the acquisition on October 27^th. So, this email warning employees of upcoming terminations must have been the last thing they were expecting. Imagine sitting at home constantly refreshing your email wondering if you will have a job that day.

Another tactic being used to weed out employees by assigning impossible tasks like redesigning their subscription and verification systems in a week.

Musk has also fired people on Twitter’s leadership team like Parag Agrawal, the now former CEO, and executives have left the company throughout the week.

With this, Musk has also invited employees from his other companies to help. 50 of them are from Tesla, 2 from The Boring Company, and 1 from Neuralink. CNBC lists out some of the employees brought over from Tesla:

“Director of software development Ashok Elluswamy, director of Autopilot and TeslaBot engineering Milan Kovac, senior director of software engineering Maha Virduhagiri; Pete Scheutzow, a senior staff technical program manager, and Jake Nocon, who is part of Tesla’s surveillance unit, as a senior manager of security intelligence.”

Elon Musk’s goal of making Twitter a platform for free speech has led to concerns of the app to become a vessel for people to do or say whatever they want. But Reuters reported Monday that Musk promised the European Union that they would follow the Digital Services Act. The Digital Services Act punishes companies that do not control illegal content. He also plans to have a council that would moderate and be made up of “widely diverse viewpoints.”

Seeing the reactions of people online and conversing with peers has made my opinion on the issue mixed. Do not get me wrong, I love watching chaos unfold. The original tweet Elon made was like adding water to a grease fire. I thought a change in management could direct Twitter in the direction of neutrality. But questions about the ethicality of a Twitter edit button and whether Musk would have banned Donald Trump’s Twitter account on January 6^th, 2021, made me wonder if he would be fit for the job.

But, before we dive into the big questions, let us go over some of the more interesting changes Twitter could face.

The first possible change, and Musk’s main motivation, was free speech, and to make Twitter a place that was politically neutral. He reinforced this on Twitter by stating that:

By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.

I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.

If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.

Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2022

Despite this, fears of allowing accounts like those involved in the organization of the January 6^th terrorist attack and Donald Trump back on Twitter have been raised. Though Musk has not made a statement about unbanning Donald Trump, many of the accounts that day tweeted, shared images, and videos threatening members of government. Some, including Donald Trump made tweets that, in their context, could be used to influence others to further incite violence. This is the grey area. Do the tweets themselves have to contain threats for them to be considered illegal? Will context matter in the future?

The next change that could potentially happen is making Twitter’s algorithm more transparent. According to ABC News, Musk believes that Twitter should make “the algorithms open source to increase trust.” The push for this is for people to see which posts are promoted over others and if there is a bias. Though there is no concrete proof that a bias occurs in Twitter’s algorithm, many right-wing accounts accuse the platform of allowing leftist accounts to receive more views.

Among the changes that could be happening, the most interesting of the bunch is the edit button. Now, if you are like me, spelling was not your best subject. I have found myself countless times having to delete a tweet because I caught an obvious spelling mistake, I did not notice while writing. Though an edit button might be beneficial for people like me, could an edit button be used unethically? One could use the edit button to change what they said and deceive others of what the tweet was. But, according to the New York Post, a Twitter code breaker was able to edit her tweet. It also shows that the tweet has been edited and notifies users when there is an updated version of the tweet.

How an edited Tweet looks like on Twitter Web App: pic.twitter.com/boouYlvhA3

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) May 2, 2022

Another interesting change that could be coming to Twitter is account authentication. One of the proposals that Elon Musk brought up is giving more accounts the blue check mark. Fortune writes that an increase in two-factor authentication could make people less likely to make different spam accounts.

Although Twitter released a paid subscription called Twitter Blue, it did not seem to garner a lot of success. YouTube has a similar feature called YouTube Premium. Business of Apps cites that this ad free option has 30 million subscribers as of 2020. With YouTube Premium’s success, a similar subscription service may be a promising move for Twitter.

The shakeup in Twitter’s leadership has a lot of people questioning if Twitter is in good hands. Though, after researching I have concluded that I am optimistic for the future of Twitter. The changes proposed, I believe will make the platform more trustworthy and politically neutral.

After speaking with bitcoin miners, the Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX CEO tweeted late Monday that the North American miners said they are “committed to publish current and planned renewable usage.”

He went on to add that these same miners will ask their global rivals to do the same – a development he claimed “potentially promising.”

Hitting an all-time high just last month of $60,000, bitcoin (XBT) has found some sort of balance in recent days at $37,000 after dropping.

In the past few weeks, prices for other top crypto like ethereum, binance coin, cardano, XRP, and even dogecoin – the meme coin Musk has previously tweeted about and even called a “hustle” during his appearance on “Saturday Night Live” have also plummeted.

Other factors throwing a wrench in crypto movement can be attributed to a new crackdown in China, a location where many miners operate, and new guidance from the US Treasury Department on how to properly tax bitcoin.

Even so, Musk’s commentary drives shares for several top bitcoin mining companies. Mining companies own the facilities that house high-end hardware that is used to solve complex mathematical puzzles which generate new bitcoin.

Riot Blockchain (RIOT), Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA), and Hive Blockchain (HVBTF) all jumped on Monday more than 10%, then dropped back a bit on Tuesday morning.

CEO of software firm MicroStrategy (MSTR) Michael Saylor, who owns a rather large portion of bitcoin, and has continued to purchase more since prices have dropped, tweeted in a series that he ‘helped arrange the meeting between Musk and the bitcoin miners.’

Saylor went into specifics and named Riot, Hive, and Marathon, along with five others, and made note that they “have agreed to form the Bitcoin Mining Council to promote energy usage transparency and accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide.”

MicroStrategy shares bumped up 5% on Monday, while the stocks have reflected the movement of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies – similar to Tesla and other bitcoin miners lately.

MicroStrategy is one of many high-profile companies whose stocks have been affected in the past year. Though being up nearly 20% this year, it has tanked nearly 65% after its former 52-week high.

As Musk has tweeted for months, the cryptocurrency markets haven’t stopped moving. It seems his talk about dogecoin, a meme coin that began as a joke, has now seen giant growth and is scratching the surface of practical use.

Unfortunately for bitcoin lovers, Musk tweeted and announced that Tesla (TSLA.O) would discontinue the acceptance of the coin as payment as a result of ‘environmental concerns’. This lingering news could be a slight clue as to why bitcoin saw a drop.

“Toppy markets (are) looking for an excuse to breathe,” said Ben Sebley of crypto firm BCB Group. “Long money doesn’t care about Elon’s tweets. Fast money trades around that stuff now.”

According to CoinGecko, dogecoin saw a jump of nearly 25% after Musk’s latest tweet. Sitting at $0.52 most recently, with its record hit being last week at $0.73.

“Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising,” Musk wrote on Thursday. He called it a “hustle” last week, knocking its price.

Mark Humphery-Jenner, associate professor of finance at the University of New South Wales, says it remains unclear if Musk is referring to efficiency in terms of energy, ease of use, or overall suitability as a currency.

Data center provider TRG reports that dogecoin consumes 0.12 kilowatt hours of electricity per transaction compared to bitcoin’s 707.

CoinMarketCap released that dogecoin surged to the fourth-largest cryptocurrency just this year with a total value of $68 billion. The token which was initiated as a joke, features a Shibu Inu pup. With an unlimited supply, there are only a few major companies that will accept the coin as a form of payment.

On the flipside of the coin, bitcoin’s gains for this year can be attributed partly to the growing mainstream adoption of its use for official payment. And the supply is rather limited.

“Dogecoin remains a lesson in greater fool theory,” said David Kimberley, analyst at investing app Freetrade, which posits that buying overpriced assets can be profitable, so long as there is a “greater fool” to buy them.

On Saturday, May 8^th, Elon Musk hosted Saturday Night Live and revealed he has Asperger’s during the opening monologue. He prefaces his statement by pointing out that he does not have intonations in his voice, so he sounds like he does not mean something when he does.

So, what is Asperger’s? Asperger’s, according to Healthline, is a neurological disorder on the autism spectrum. Some of the primary symptoms include difficulty with social interactions, engaging in repetitive behaviors, having a firm stance on what they think, and focusing on rules and routines. Some other symptoms of Asperger’s vary from person to person, but the symptoms Musk mentions in the beginning of the episode are having a monotone voice and avoiding eye contact with other cast members.

This announcement quickly led to controversy, however. Musk claimed he made history as “the first person with Asperger’s to host SNL, or at least the first to admit it.” This is not the case. According to Today, the first person to host SNL with Asperger’s syndrome was Dan Akroyd back in 2003.

Another reason was because the term Asperger’s is outdated. In 2013, Asperger’s was merged with a broader term called autism spectrum disorder, and it is no longer in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). According to Spectrum News, the main reason for this is that Asperger’s was a separate diagnosis from autism. By grouping it in with autism spectrum disorder it recognizes that Asperger’s, “is part of the autism spectrum, to clean up a currently hard-to-implement and contradictory diagnostic schema, and to do away with distinctions that are made idiosyncratically and unreliably across different diagnostic centers and clinicians.”

Though Musk’s announcement did receive backlash, it also did some good. According to FR42 News, Dania Jenkel, the Executive Director of AANE (Asperger/Autism Network), claimed that their website had an 150% increase the day after Elon Musk’s announcement. Jenkel states that the increase in visitors is no coincidence and that Musk is inspiring others with Asperger’s by talking about his struggles on live television. AANE is an organization that “provides individuals, families, and professionals with information, education, community, support, and advocacy.”

Elon Musk is proof that people with Asperger’s or autism are just as valuable to society as people without. It is great that Musk felt comfortable to share that to a live audience and with millions of people watching. ABC News reported that the episode brought in 7.3 million viewers, which is the third most watched episode of the season. The topmost watched episode was hosted by Dave Chappelle followed by Chris Rock as the second.

CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, admits he has never said a single word to Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. Musk previously tweeted in December that in the ‘darkest days of the Model 3 program’ he attempted to reach Cook to discuss the possibilities of Apple acquiring Tesla but “he refused to take the meeting”.

Strange, if true.

– Tesla already uses iron-phosphate for medium range cars made in our Shanghai factory.

– A monocell is electrochemically impossible, as max voltage is ~100X too low. Maybe they meant cells bonded together, like our structural battery pack?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2020

When Cook appeared on the Podcast Sway, hosted by Kara Swisher, he finally responded to Musk’s comments. But prior to that, he remained silent.

“Last year, Elon Musk said he offered to sell Tesla to Apple for 1/10 its value. And he said you wouldn’t even take a meeting with him,” Swisher said.

To which Cook replied: “You know, I’ve never spoken to Elon, although I have great admiration and respect for the company he’s built. I think Tesla has done an unbelievable job of not only establishing the lead, but keeping the lead for such a long period of time in the EV space. So I have great appreciation for them.”

Cook also decided to share a little about Apple’s future in autonomous vehicles.

“In terms of the work that we’re doing there, obviously, I’m going to be a little coy on that,” he said. “The autonomy itself is a core technology, in my view. If you sort of step back, the car, in a lot of ways, is a robot. An autonomous car is a robot. And so there’s lots of things you can do with autonomy. And we’ll see what Apple does. We investigate so many things internally. Many of them never see the light of day. I’m not saying that one will not.”

After Tesla revealed that it manufactured just over 180,000 electric vehicles and delivered nearly 185,000 the first quarter of the year, the shares have jumped.

“We are encouraged by the strong reception of the Model Y in China and are quickly progressing to full production capacity. The new Model S and Model X have also been exceptionally well received, with the new equipment installed and tested in Q1 and we are in the early stages of ramping production,” the company said in a statement.

Tesla $TSLA receives ‘Outperform’ rating after ‘dropping the mic’ with Q1 numbershttps://t.co/LPA3xewT5H by @ResidentSponge

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 5, 2021

On Monday, Tesla was on track to surge again and hit its highest value in over a month after pre-market trading finished and its market value jumped nearly 8 per cent, adding roughly $50 billion.

“Tesla is executing impeccably. I am not surprised by the strong deliveries,” said Roth Capital Partners analyst Craig Irwin, adding that the stock is “egregiously overvalued.”

“EVs are an exciting place to be, and Tesla is the leader.”

And although details are yet to be revealed, last week US President Joe Biden announced $174 billion in spending on electric vehicle incentives and charging stations.

Also setting new record highs on Monday were the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average indexes. Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.13 per cent, to a record high 33,527.19, the S&P 500 jumped 1.44 per cent to a record 4,077.91, and Nasdaq Composite added 1.67 per cent, to 13,705.59.

A survey on Monday from the Institute for Supply Management showcased activity in the US services industry reaching its highest level on record just last month. After a jobs report was released last Friday showing 916,000 jobs added to the US economy last month, Reuters reported. This set of data reached an increase in investor sentiment.

?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2021

So, where did these fake headlines come from?

The first traces of the hashtag, according to The Drive, appeared around 10:30 am on Friday. The tweet included a picture of Elon Musk joining a group of celebrities and other pop culture icons in heaven. Some of the celebrities include Bob Ross, Michael Jackson, Prince, Harambe, and a Club Penguin.

#RIPelon devastating news. Not gonna be active today this is a big hit to the scientific community. pic.twitter.com/pfZVa16bEO

— GUY (@googpilled) March 5, 2021

A good portion of these questionable screenshots looks like they are from credible sources. For instance, a Fox News headline reads “Elon Musk Declared Dead After Factory Explosion,” and,” Elon Musk is Dead – What This Means For the Stock Market, and Why This is Good For the Average American,” from Buzzfeed.

Someone even went out of their way to create a fake announcement from Tesla that confirmed his death to investors. The statement claimed that there is an investigation underway on how the information got out and that they need to find a replacement for Elon Musk before making an announcement.

“We absolutely must find a replacement for Mr. Musk before announcing his death publicly.”

The statement was signed by Tesla’s PR team. Someone needs to tell the person that made this that Tesla does not have a PR team anymore. Nice try I guess.

UPDATE THIS SHIT IS INSANE, #ripelon pic.twitter.com/Sc2VqFIxTP

— Freud_Goku (@FreudOne) March 5, 2021

It is not certain why people made these fake stories, but the fake announcement from Tesla might be a clue. Benzinga reports that the reason these screenshots were circulated was to bring down Tesla’s share price.