Elon Musk Responds to Sen. Markey’s Concerns With Childish Snark
IMPOSTER SYNDROME
Elon Musk appears to think that taunting a powerful lawmaker over a Twitter problem caused by his own chaotic decision-making is a good way to handle receiving a warning from the Federal Trade Commission. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) on Sunday morning tweeted in response to a Washington Post story noting how a reporter was able to impersonate the senator within minutes of shelling out $8 for a Twitter Blue subscription. “Allowing an imposter to impersonate a U.S. Senator on Twitter is a serious matter that you need to address promptly,” Markey wrote in a Twitter statement, demanding answers by Nov. 25. “Twitter must explain how this happened and how to prevent it from happening again.” But Musk had no substantive answers for how his company continually allows such impersonations to happen—especially ones like Markey’s where his actual official account was already verified on the platform. Instead, the billionaire offered up a snarky, acid-tinged reply: “Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody?” Steep layoffs and the widespread impersonations of celebrities, government officials, and large companies resulted in a stern reprimand from the FTC to Musk on Thursday, warning that no “CEO or company is above the law.”