This week, Elon Musk has taken to his social media platform which he owns thanks to the generosity of the Saudi’s among others to attack two prominent public figures. I have to admit I have gotten off the platform the last few months something I thought I could never do but have generally had a better life since I did so, thus didn’t learn about these attacks until well after the fact. Musk claims Twitter is the global public square but in fact has made it a place that is more than ever a repository for an alternate world view and non-reality based thinking.

Since leaving Twitter, which I did after months of polarizing comments about soccer more than politics (but I had stopped tweeting about politics which might have been a subconscious decision to disconnect from that area on the platform) I have been able to become more grounded in reality than any time in recent years. Yet, somehow so many people that work in and around politics in the center or on the left have continued to use Twitter DM to contact me, asking me to Retweet stuff or jump into replies even though I had made clear in my profile I no longer am on the platform. Odd.

Live locally but think globally about nonsense

The feedback loop substitutes for real life conversations and real life interactions and also deemphasizes local for global considerations. I’ve found that BOTH with politics and soccer as people seem more up on what’s happening every day in Congress than on their local town councils and in soccer with what’s happening across the pond or with their national teams than with local clubs that represent their communities. This is a bad trend for society in my opinion as it deemphasizes actual community and promotes fragmentation of societies and people who don’t have to actually interact with other human beings in a proper manner.

All of these critiques having been made and accepting people can make their own choices about Twitter, I am finding it increasingly obtuse that many on the center and mainstream left (not the RFK Jr. supporting/Glenn Greenwald parroting alt-left) continue to use a platform where the proprietor thinks its okay to personally misrepresent the views of leading public figures.

Musk is entitled to his own beliefs and along with his other tech bros billionaire buddies Peter Thiel and David Sachs, seem determined to influence western politics with some serious masculine fragility. That’s his choice but what isn’t cool is that personal attacks can be authored by him, parroted by his followers and then become mistaken for fact by some serious centrist and progressive influencers that still spend most of their day on Twitter.

Musk’s recent attacks on VP Harris (pictured above) show an alarming lack of self-awareness as he’s been a direct beneficiary of a lack of equitable access and continues to be someone whose wealth is largely tied to his relationship with government, whether it is his own US government or illiberal regimes abroad. Part of the anger in society is after the 2008 economic crash guys like Musk always was backed by government billions while the ordinary citizen struggled as the income gap got wider and wider.

I understand how difficult it is to disconnect from the feedback loop Twitter provides- ultimately I had jumped on and off the platform for years because every time I jumped off, I began to feel I was missing critical conversations. Guess what? The critical conversations are happening elsewhere on the internet, in your homes, with your families and on creator platforms like Substack. As Musk continues to go deep into strange territory I trust more and more thoughtful influencers with a responsible world view will disconnect from the platform.

NOTE: The Florida Squeeze continues to tweet but I am not the one who Tweets for the site. I have stopped Tweeting completely since early June outside of occasional posts on my airline Twitter account.