Very funny Twitter CEO sets 4/20 as “final date” for legacy Blue Checks
You see, 4/20 is often used as a sly bit of code for smoking cannabis.
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April 20 means a lot of things to a lot of people. And outside of the obviously very funny commemoration of smoking weed with your friends, none of them are all that funny. So it does seem fitting that that rapscallion of a businessman Elon Musk would declare 4/20 the “final date” for legacy blue check marks.
In a rare tweet that didn’t include a laughing emoji, a poop emoji, the word “interesting…”, conspiratorial gobbledygook, transphobia, or all of the above, Elon Musk declared, “Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20.”
Musk’s an old hat at recycling this classic numerical knee slapper. Like every great comedian, which Musk is, he learned to reuse his best material again and again and again and again and again until you’ve paid $44 billion for a website that everyone jokes “is free.” In 2018, Musk tweeted that he was considering taking his publicly traded car company with a steering wheel that flies off while you’re driving privately for $420 per share. The enfant terrible stuck it to society with that one, and the SEC forced him to pay $20 million for misleading investors. Reuters reports that “Musk said he rounded the price up to $420 because he had recently learned about the number’s significance in marijuana culture and thought his girlfriend would find it funny, ‘which admittedly is not a great reason to pick a price.’” In terms only Musk can understand, $20 million was worth it for the lolz.
But a little money can’t keep a great comic down. On April 14, 2022, Musk offered a $54.20-per-share offer on Twitter and signed the documents for the bid on April 20. Whether or not he meant this as a joke, because it’s admittedly not a great reason to pick a price, is beside the point since regulators forced him to pay up anyway (again, a small price for those sweet, sweet lolz). Clearly, the SEC doesn’t have a great sense of humor because this latest yuk-em-up is almost as funny as when Musk changed the Twitter logo to doge. Wow. Much funny. Many happy.
Of course, that gives us all who still use the currently crumbling micro-blogging site a heads up. Blue checks originally signified the organization or individual was verified by Twitter as legitimate. Now it means that the sad mark with a blue check paid $8 for the distinction of being ignored from every conversation they reply to. At least it’ll be a little easier to separate the wheat from the chaff unless you’re Elon Musk, who seemingly wants to watch his net worth plummet like Roman Roy pointing to his father on a stock ticker. “There he is. That is Elon.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article mistakenly said Musk was fined by the SCC. He was fined by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). We regret the error.
50 Comments
I really want to punch this guy. Like, so bad.
Agreed. He’s a huge cunt. And not the good kind.
Now, no need to be insulting. Calling him a cunt implies that he has depth and warmth.
Elon Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur and founder of SpaceX, Tesla, and Neuralink, was in hot water. It was revealed that he had been using Twitter to send secret messages to his weed dealer, and the internet was ablaze with outrage.It all started when a former employee of Musk’s tweeted about the CEO’s habit of using Twitter to send coded messages to his weed dealer. The employee claimed that Musk would use seemingly innocent tweets to communicate with his dealer, using emojis and other subtle cues to indicate the quantity and quality of the drugs he wanted.At first, Musk dismissed the allegations as ridiculous, claiming that he had never used Twitter to send secret messages to anyone, let alone a weed dealer. But the evidence was mounting, and it soon became clear that Musk was lying.The internet erupted with memes and jokes about Musk’s habit, with many people calling for him to be held accountable for his actions. Some even suggested that he be forced to step down from his role as CEO of SpaceX and Tesla.Musk’s spokesperson issued a statement, admitting that Musk had indeed used Twitter to communicate with his weed dealer. The spokesperson claimed that Musk was under a lot of stress and had turned to drugs to cope with the pressure. They promised that Musk would seek help and that he was committed to making things right.Despite the apology, the damage was done. Musk’s reputation had taken a serious hit, and many people were questioning his ability to lead his companies. The stock prices of SpaceX and Tesla plummeted, and investors began to worry about the future of the companies.In the end, Musk was forced to step down from his role as CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla. He went into rehab to deal with his addiction and apologized to his fans and investors for his behavior, but it was too late: they all knew he was a worthless chode.
Reporting on this guy and his “will he or won’t he?” antics is only contributing to the problem. Seriously, after Trump has nobody learned anything about covering narcissists?
The AV Club wrote a post after Trump left office making a big show about they wouldn’t cover him anymore. Then he was indicted and they went right back to covering Trump. Not even the indictment itself, but reactions to it.My point is no, they’ve learned nothing.
Learning implies ethics, a moral backbone and the ability to self-reflect. Can’t expect that from modern AV Club.
Those two things took place over two years apart.
And? The post didn’t specify an expiration date on talking about Trump. If AVC’s article was specifically a Newswire about his arrest, I wouldn’t even bat an eye. It’s pretending like covering what other people said about it like it’s not covering Trump that struck me as dishonest.
I think they’ve only done two Trump articles since his indictment, whereas I bet the old A.V. Club would’ve done three times that many.
America doesn’t learn; it reacts. We’re f*cking doomed.
To be fair, our rich conservative white man-owned corporate media as a whole hasn’t learned a fucking thing from the Trump years.
If anything they learned that covering Trump is a gold mine.
But…the clicks!
Cute take.Meanwhile, the entire entertainment industry and pop culture is full of narcissists to which this site is dedicated to covering.
This is a well-written takedown of Elon (and aggregation of exhausting things he has done) and reminds me of the AV Club articles from about ten years ago that mercilessly mocked Justin Bieber, like this one: https://www.avclub.com/justin-bieber-just-likes-butts-1798232100There’s a “your” in the second-to-last sentence that should be a “you’re,” but other than that, well done!
Maybe I’m ignorant about an agency that I was previously unfamiliar with — and maybe it exists in addition to the SEC — but… are you referring to the Securities and Exchange Commission as the “SCC” multiple times in this article?
The Southeastern Climbers Coalition has a lot of power previously unknown to us working class folk.
If it weren’t for them, the TVA would have been useless. Who else could have strung all those power lines through Appalachia?
What does the Time Variance Authority have to do with this?
Amusingly enough, the former journalist Matt Taibbi based his entire “Twitter Files” report for Musk around the mistaken notion that where the “CIS” was referenced (an independent nonprofit) in Twitter’s records, it actually meant “CISA”, i.e. the US government.
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/07/mehdi-hasan-dismantles-the-entire-foundation-of-the-twitter-files-as-matt-taibbi-stumbles-to-defend-it/
What a petulant child.
Haven’t any of his toadies told him WHY they have the “verified user” check marks? It’s more to protect Twitter than it is to protect users. They instituted it because people were threatening lawsuits over users pretending they were media personalities, or other personalities in the public eye and saying awful things in their names.I hope every legacy blue-check files a lawsuit the first time a user starts an account in their name and says something heinous.
That’s not what toadies do. He fired everyone else.
Didn’t even know wtf a blue check is. So this verifies your account is ‘real’? ‘true’? According to whom or what?Everyone’s at the circus and letting this guy sit in the front seat of a driverless clown car.
In the pre-Elon (prElon?) Twitter days, a blue check was bestowed by twitter to show that an account was “verified” – meaning that the person behind the account was who they say they are. It was given to people or agencies who fit a certain “noteworthy” criteria, after they submitted documentation affirming that they were in fact the person they claimed to be. So it was for celebrities, politicians, brands/companies, etc. but also journalists and other individuals who might be targets for someone to hijack their identity and spread misinformation.Elon just decided that anyone who ponied up $8 should get to have this check, which robbed it of literally all its meaning. Immediately, accounts did exactly the thing the blue check was originally meant to prevent, by posing as individuals and companies and tweeting bullshit, which is hilarious because it actually caused Eli Lilly’s stock price to plummet by billions after a fake verified account announced insulin would be free. This one actually had some pretty great positive outcomes, because there’s a direct through line between that and Eli Lilly drastically cutting its insulin prices, after a huge spotlight was shone upon their price gouging.But mostly what it has led to is any chud with a username like MAGAFAN030308408408 thinking they’re somehow “legit” cause they paid $8 for a little icon next to their username that literally means nothing except that they paid $8 for it.
the other benefit is it leads to morons saying ‘$8 a month is a low price for free speech’ as if the operative word in free speech wasn’t ‘free’.
Thanks for the information. I’m always grateful (and unashamed) to be educated. It’s a nice change from the outrage and the general bullying going on here.
Are you the real BreadnMaters?
Elon has a new girlfriend? I guess it’s pretty sad that this is the only thing that actually caught my attention.
Nah, they’re talking about the 2018 stock price, so they’re referring to Grimes.
Unfortunately I was curious enough to Google and he’s hooked up with an Australian actress, 27.
Actress who’s only role of note was as Britney Spears in a Lifetime movie
Because everything about him is so godamn twee and weird I assume 27 is her actual name.
That’s what they’ll name the baby they’ll inevitably have because he’s one of these thinks he has to put every woman in the room with his child.
It’s so weird how his brand of “Internet humour” is just shit people laughed at 10 – 20 years ago. It’s all doge and 420/69 and, I’m sure if we give it long enough, i can has cheezburger.
He’s probably disappointed that he can’t send people to goatse.cx anymore. (At least, I assume it’s no longer up. Someone else can check if they want to…)
I’m sorry that you mentioned I Can Haz Cheezburger as it reminded me of how good that site used to be. Some dreck, sure, but some genuine wit in there too. Now it’s worthless. When they got a TV show I knew it was over the shark.
They had a TV show?!
he peaked in 2013 and if you view everything he does through that lens it makes sense.
It really is astounding how much of a complete idiot he really is. If he never opened his mouth he’d still be considered a genius. Sad.
The 20th of April is also Hitler’s birthday but I’m sure that won’t be of note to anyone on Twitter these days…
Everyone we disagree with is Hitler.
I can’t believe it took this long for someone to say that particular fun fact.
Weird rich guy continues to not understand how funny works
But enough about Ricky Gervais.
unless you’re* elon musk. Kinda funny for an article with a tone of condescending pedantry to be rife with typos
Alternatively, he’s choosing that date to honor Hitler on his birthday.
Unless my Elon Musk what?
He does realize that he’s an adult, right?