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On the day that public records revealed that #ElonMusk had become #Twitter’s biggest #shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire & recommended an article imploring him to acquire the #SocialNetwork outright.
#Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the 3k-word anonymous article said, would amount to a “declaration of war against the Globalist American Empire.” The sender of the texts was offering Musk… a playbook for the takeover & transformation of Twitter.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/was-elon-musks-strategy-twitter-rcna118490
As the anniversary of #Musk's purchase approaches, the identity of the sender remains unknown.
The 3 texts were sent on April 4, 2022. In the nearly 18 months since then, many of the decisions Musk made after he bought #Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to & including his ongoing attacks against the #ADL, a nonprofit org founded by #Jewish Americans to counter #discrimination.
The text messages described a series of actions #Musk should take after he gained full control of the #SocialMedia #platform:
“Step 1: Blame the platform for its users; Step 2: Coordinated pressure campaign; Step 3: Exodus of the Bluechecks; Step 4: Deplatforming.”
The msgs from the unknown sender were revealed in a court filing last year as evidence in a #lawsuit #Twitter brought against Musk after he tried to back out of buying it.…
The wording of the texts matches the subtitles of the article, “The Battle of the Century: Here’s What Happens if #ElonMusk Buys #Twitter,” …published 3 days earlier on a #RightWing website….
…The site is run by the #FarRight blogger #DarrenBeattie, a fmr #Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside #WhiteNationalists. After the #Jan6, 2021, attack… #Beattie promoted the baseless claim that the FBI had planted agents in the crowd who incited it….
When the text msgs to #Musk were revealed in the court filing last spring, observers suggested…that #Beattie himself may have sent them. Asked by NBC…, Beattie declined to comment & instead suggested that the #ADL should be investigated….
…Following the article's pub on April 1, 2022, Beattie spent wks urging Musk to buy #Twitter outright & pushing his transformation plan on #RightWing podcasts & TV shows, incl’g #SteveBannon’s “Bannon’s War Room” & #TuckerCarlson’s since-canceled #FoxNews show.
~4 wks after the article from #Beattie’s site appeared online & 2 wks after Beattie’s interview on Carlson’s show, #Musk bought #Twitter …& took the company #private, per the article’s suggestion. …Several of the steps he has taken resemble those described in the …article.
The article… begins w/a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost #Trump the 2020 election….
The author said that “Step 1” after a #Musk takeover would be: “Blame the #platform for its #users.” He or she predicted that “#Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘#racism’ ‘#sexism’ & ‘#transphobia’ occurring on its platform.”
After Musk’s purchase…, he allowed #suspended accts to return. Among them, the account of #Trump, …banned after the #Jan6 … #insurrection, as well as the personal accts of #FarRight Rep #MarjorieTaylorGreene, & the fndr of a neo-#Nazi site, #AndrewAnglin.
The article predicted that “Step 2” would involve a “Coordinated pressure campaign” by the #ADL & other nonprofit groups to get #Musk to reinstate the bans…. “A vast constellation of activists & non-profits” will lurch into action to “put more & more pressure on the company to change its ways,” the article reads.
The next step, the …article predicted, would be the “Exodus of the bluechecks.”
…Musk experimented w/& ultimately eliminated #Twitter’s #verification system of “#bluechecks.”
As the article predicted, the removal resulted in a public backlash & an exponential drop in #advertisers & #revenue. Other developments, including #Musk’s drastically reducing the number of staffers who #monitor tweets & a rise in #HateSpeech, also contributed to the dynamic.
The article predicted…, “Step 4,” would be the “deplatforming” of #Twitter itself. He said a Musk-owned Twitter would face the same fate as #Parler, a #platform that presented itself as a “free speech” home for the right.
…The anonymous story …called the #ADL a “danger” to Musk’s ownership & said it was one of several “powerful left-wing activist groups” that had “besieged” #Twitter before #Musk bought it. It claimed that the ADL’s CEO, #JonathanGreenblatt, “brought Twitter to heel” by telling the platform, “Play ball, or be ready to be put in league with Nazis.”
The article then expressed sympathy for the #Russian-government-controlled news outlets #RussiaToday & #Sputnik, saying they had been unfairly “canceled” after #Russia invaded #Ukraine. #Musk ended the use of “#StateSponsoredMedia” labels on #Twitter this year, dropping it from the accounts of Russia Today, Sputnik & many other state-owned orgs. The change reportedly prompted #RT editor Margarita Simonyan to send #Musk a note of appreciation.
…after Musk’s …takeover, #Beattie appeared on the podcast of #SteveBannon & called for #Musk to make internal emails from #Twitter management public.
One month later, Musk released the “#TwitterFiles” — a partial release of internal emails by #TwitterEmployees curated by Musk-friendly writers.
#Beattie’s pol career appeared…over when he was fired …as speechwriter for #Trump in 2018. His removal came after …he had spoken on a panel alongside Peter Brimelow, the founder of the #WhiteNationalist website VDare.
Beattie… (also worked for) Trump adviser #StephenMiller. In 2019, he was hired as a speechwriter by Rep Matt #Gaetz…. & the Trump admin rehired him shortly after Trump lost the 2020 election, appointing him to a commission that preserved #Holocaust memorials abroad. (what now?)
The hiring drew the ire of the #ADL & #Greenblatt, who urged the #Trump admin to rescind it. The #Biden admin forced Beattie to resign….
Beattie has cont’d to run (his site) & has appeared on #RightWing programs accusing the FBI of inciting… #Jan6. #Musk, meanwhile, has continued to blame the #ADL for #X’s declining revenue.
…Sept 4, Musk threatened to sue the ADL, claiming, w/o… evidence, that US ad revenues are “down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL.”
The same week, the hashtag “BanTheADL”, pushed in part by #WhiteNationalists, trended on #Twitter, & #Musk tweeted that the “ADL has tried very hard to strangle X/Twitter.”
On the same day, #Musk blamed the #ADL for causing #antisemitism. “The ADL, because they are so aggressive in their demands to ban social media accounts for even minor infractions, are ironically the biggest generators of anti-Semitism on this platform!”
…The Apr 2022 text to #Musk including #Beattie’s article concludes w/some final suggestions: Let “the boss himself,” presumably… #Trump, back on #Twitter. …Then, the text reads, hire a “savvy/cultural” exec to work on “enforcement.”
“It will be a delicate game of letting right wingers back on Twitter & how to navigate that,” the author wrote, adding Musk should hire someone who “has a savvy cultural/political view” to be “the VP of actual enforcement…."
(Musk hired #LindaYaccarino)