Elon Musk loves Twitter. But he also hates it. But he loves it. That, roughly, is our assessment of Musk’s relationship with the short-form social network, based on how often he says he’s had enough of Twitter and how quickly he typically comes back.
On Tuesday, Musk tweeted he’ll be “off Twitter for a while.” He hasn’t broken his promise in *checks watch* four hours, so far.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has had (short) breaks from Twitter before. In Nov. 2019, he said he was “going offline,” adding that he’s “not sure about good of Twitter.” The exodus lasted only four days. In April 2020, he has seemingly had enough of Twitter and his followers, though he didn’t actually quit the service on that particular occasion. And in June 2020, he once again took a break from Twitter, announcing it with the exact same tweet as he did today: “Off Twitter for a while.” He returned to his regular tweeting self after just two days.
Some of Musk’s previous Twitter breaks have come after rough periods for him or his companies, but on this particular occasion, everything seems to be hunky dory: He’s the richest person on the planet, and Tesla is doing pretty good, too.
Notably, Musk recently changed his Twitter bio to #bitcoin, causing the price of the cryptocurrency to sharply rise before quickly subsiding back to where it started from. Musk later commented on Bitcoin in a Clubhouse chat, saying he believes the cryptocurrency will get “broad acceptance” in finance, but also admitting he’s “late to the party.”