Elon Musk's Twitter in 2018: Lawsuits, dank memes, and 'funding secured'
What better way to really understand Elon Musk's year as Tesla CEO than to look back at his Twitter. It's been a bumpy and very busy year for the electric car executive. He went from the depths of despair to turning a profit for Tesla for the first time -- with a few lawsuits and scathing news reports thrown in for good measure. He even took a few puffs of marijuana on a podcast.
His most famous tweet of 2018?
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That led to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit and possible criminal investigation. In his settlement (which cost him $20 million and Tesla another $20 million), he was removed as chairman of the board and his tweeting is now under close watch. That didn't stop him from taunting the SEC. He remains CEO of Tesla.
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Before the SEC drama in August, he divulged he was in "production hell" as he struggled to build 5,000 Model 3 cars a week. We learned Musk was sleeping at the office.
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As Musk himself said in a Halloween interview with Recode's Kara Swisher, "It’s fair to say I would probably not have tweeted some of the things I tweeted, that was probably unwise."
Back in May, he went on a rant about creating a truth-rating website called Pravda.
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Later, he broke down in a New York Times article, calling this year the "most difficult and painful year of my career." BUT HE DID NOT CRY.
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And he's still dealing with the repercussions of an insulting (since deleted) tweet calling a British cave diver a "pedo guy." The diver is suing for defamation. Musk argued this week that since it happened on Twitter it's protected speech.
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Musk also used Twitter to make countless product announcements, from off-menu paint colors to updated Autopilot software. He tweeted about a farting unicorn and gave his cars the ability to fart. He also gave clues about major releases, like the elusive Model Y.
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Tesla's stock price is a good indicator of when Musk's Twitter behavior is getting too much for shareholders to handle. The dips match low points in his tweets, IRL behavior, and Model 3 production numbers.
Musk's personal life got even weirder this year. In February he broke up with actress Amber Heard and then started dating the singer Grimes.
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This was the year Musk recognized his own Twitter influence and started tweeting some bizarre posts and what he considers funny jokes.
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By the way, Musk is 47 years old.
Elon Musk also used Twitter to announce a new name for his Boring Company's flamethrowers.
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This was just 365 days. What a year.
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
