Musk said the risk of him being assassinated is ‘quite significant’
Elon Musk has reassured the public that he is in good mental health, as he spoke about the “significant” risk of something “bad happening to me”.
Speaking at a Twitter Space Q&A over the weekend where tens of thousands of people tuned in, Musk was asked, among other things, if he is suicidal.
According to Business Insider, he said he wasn’t and added: “I do not have any suicidal thoughts. If I committed suicide, it’s not real.”
While the question might seem odd to ask the richest man in the world, Musk has previously alluded to his death with a tweet in May which read: “If I die under mysterious circumstances, it’s been nice knowin’ ya.”
During the Q&A the SpaceX founder and Twitter boss admitted he’s felt a very real target on his back recently and suggested the risk of his assassination is “quite significant”.
“Frankly the risk of something bad happening to me, or even literally being shot, is quite significant,” he said.
“It’s not that hard to kill somebody if you wanted to, so hopefully they don’t, and fate smiles upon the situation with me and it does not happen.
“There’s definitely some risk there.”
Musk said said the threat to his life is so severe that he won’t participate in any “open-air car parades” anytime soon. Having taken over Twitter, Musk had fired thousands of people.
The billionaire’s comments came after Friday evening’s inaugural instalment of what has been dubbed the Twitter Files – an unfettered inside look into corporate communications at Twitter over recent years, including during some of the company’s most controversial moments.
Musk granted journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss full access, which he said ultimately “might make sense to have…publicly available so that anyone can look at them.”
But for now, it is up to the chosen news professionals to analyse and release what they deem significant.
Kicking things off Friday evening, Taibbi published a thread that provided insight into the suppression of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop story that the New York Post first published in October 2020, just before the last presidential election.
“What you’re about to read is the first instalment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter,” wrote Taibbi.
“The Twitter Files, Part One: How and Why Twitter Blocked the Hunter Biden Laptop Story.”
An amazing subplot of the Twitter/Hunter Biden laptop affair was how much was done without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, and how long it took for the situation to get "unfucked" (as one ex-employee put it) even after Dorsey jumped in.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
The emails contained back-and-fourths between various members of Twitter’s content moderation team that ultimately led to the shaky decision to ban the story without consulting co-founder and then-CEO, Jack Dorsey.
“Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be ‘unsafe,”‘ wrote Taibbi.
“They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.”
Musk said the idea of the Twitter Files exercise is to “come clean on everything that has happened in the past in order to build public trust for the future.”
“I’m not controlling the narrative. It’s just obvious there’s been a lot of control of information, suppression of information, including things that affected elections, and that just all need to be … you just want to have the stuff out there,” he said.
Related links:
- Elon Musk sleeps with two guns on his bedside table
- Elon Musk says he will make new phone if Twitter is booted off App store
- Twitter employees film the moment they were officially fired
- Elon Musk forced to make dramatic U-turn on ‘hardcore’ ultimatum as hundreds of Twitter staff quit
- Twitter staff are calling Elon Musk a secret Sesame Street nickname
- Elon Musk says ‘I have too much work on my plate’ and is forced to work morning to night
