Elon Musk takes SpaceX and Tesla off Facebook
Sorry, Zuckerberg.
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:
What’s Facebook?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
A joke? We assumed. But then, here’s where things got crazy. This guy tweeted this:
Delete SpaceX page on Facebook if you’re the man?
— ㅤ (@serdarsprofile) March 23, 2018
And then Musk replied:
I didn’t realize there was one. Will do.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
BuzzFeed reporter Ryan Mac put on the pressure:
we’re waiting pic.twitter.com/5jAEEdja1k
— Ryan Mac (@RMac18) March 23, 2018
SpaceX social media person worrying about their job like pic.twitter.com/I0sGgHV2Rb
— Ryan Mac (@RMac18) March 23, 2018
Then reporter Bryson Masse asked about Tesla:
this should be deleted too right? pic.twitter.com/1llNaXS0CC
— bryson (@Bryson_M) March 23, 2018
And Musk agreed to delete that one too:
Definitely. Looks lame anyway.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
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:
Yeah, my fault for being an idiot. We did give them a free launch to make up for it and I think they had some insurance.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
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.
Instagram’s probably ok imo, so long as it stays fairly independent. I don’t use FB & never have, so don’t think I’m some kind of martyr or my companies are taking a huge blow. Also, we don’t advertise or pay for endorsements, so … don’t care.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
Read more: https://mashable.com/2018/03/23/elon-musk-facebook-delete-spacex-tesla-page/