Elon Musk just deleted SpaceX, Tesla Facebook pages
Elon Musk just deleted SpaceX's and Tesla's Facebook pages.
At first we thought the Instagram-obsessed billionaire was joking or, as someone would say, trolling. But Musk got himself involved in the #DeleteFacebook movement, in the wake of a data privacy issue involving Cambridge Analytica, and actually followed through.
The whole fiasco began late Friday morning when Musk responded to WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton's tweet from Tuesday:
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A joke? We assumed. But then, here's where things got crazy. This guy tweeted this:
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And then Musk replied:
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BuzzFeed reporter Ryan Mac put on the pressure:
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Then reporter Bryson Masse asked about Tesla:
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And Musk agreed to delete that one too:
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And, poof! They're gone. We're unclear about the future of the humans who probably ran those pages, and we reached out for comment from SpaceX and Tesla.
Tesla's PR representative emailed back, "I’ll just refer you to Elon’s tweets this morning."
It's important to note that Elon Musk's Instagram is still up, as well as Tesla's and SpaceX's. Reminder to Musk: Facebook owns Instagram and it's a problematic network, too.
Why would Musk want to delete his companies' Facebook pages? Perhaps because Musk is still mad about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's "limited understanding" of artificial intelligence.
But let us not forget that Musk's rocket once blew up with Zuckerberg's satellite. Musk's feelings on the situation:
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How does Zuck feel about all of this? We reached out to Facebook for comment.
UPDATE: March 23, 2018, 2:35 p.m. EDT Elon Musk tweeted that he sees Instagram as "probably ok" since it is "fairly independent." Hey Musk, Instagram is definitely not.
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Topics Facebook Social Media SpaceX Elon Musk
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
