Elon Musk has a funny way of co-opting the names people call him – and now, the “Shadow Crew” they ascribe to the world’s richest man.
Musk – who briefly changed his Twitter name to “Elona” after a Putin-allied war-lord called him that – is now touting his “Shadow Crew,” a mocking response to a Wall Street Journal story suggesting a cabal of influential friends, described by the paper as a “secret crew of billionaires and misfits,” were egging him on to buy Twitter.
“My Shadow Crew is sickkk!” he tweeted, adding: “Also, who are they again?”
The tweet was a reply to Silicon Valley investment titan Marc Andreesen, who posted the Journal story and said Musk has “a shadow crew of misfits egging you on.”
So who are these misfits, supposedly?
The Journal didn’t give a very long list, naming only former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Seth Dillon, CEO of the conservative-leaning satire site Babylon Bee. Three people might be enough for a “crew,” but might be a bit light for, say, branded merch.
There may be others, unnamed “crew” – the Journal reported that he’s “dismayed” that Donald Trump isn’t on the platform, citing “people who have spoken to him” – but no one else was named.
Twitter’s board has accepted Musk’s offer to take the company private for $44 million, which still has some financial and regulatory hurdles to clear before being finalized. However, changes are already afoot at Twitter, where a number of right-leaning accounts reported sudden and unexplained follower gains last week.