Elon Musk Gives Journalists This Crappy Response

At 51 years old, Elon Musk is a pioneer of electric vehicles and private space flight, and stands as one of the wealthiest individuals in the world. And, apparently, he has a scatological sense of humor. The self-anointed “Chief Twit” announced on Sunday that the social media platform now auto-responds to messages from the press with a poop emoji.

As swiftly as Musk made the declaration, members of the media jumped on fact-checking the provocative communiqué, which garnered 25.1 million views, over 82,000 likes and more than 6,300 retweets over the weekend.  

The Standard went ahead and shot off a short email to Twitter’s press inbox today. Lo and behold, a special delivery arrived quite promptly.

Real mature, Elon.

Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion last year, has long held a strained and unconventional relationship with the media. He’s been known to reply to top editors of the industry with a string of emojis, and he even slid into the DMs of the Verge’s branded Twitter account. In December, Musk made the controversial move of banning the accounts of several journalists who cover the billionaire. Freedom of the press advocates quickly criticized Musk’s actions—both now and in December. 

In a letter to advertisers after acquiring Twitter, Musk said he bought the social media platform “to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner without resorting to violence.”

Aside from the poop emoji, Twitter did not comment on the media’s reaction to Musk’s crappy antics. But perhaps the medium is the message.