Stephen King isn’t the only writer who’s engaged in a war of words on Twitter with new owner Elon Musk.
Co-host of The Tech Journalist, a veteran tech journalist Pivot podcast Kara Swisher, who has written for New York magazine and The New York Times, retweeted Tuesday’s Semafor article This report said that Musk in secret asked Sam Bankman Fried, now bankrupt FTX, to invest $10 billion in his now-private firm. Although Bankman-Fried refused, he did accept to transfer the $100 million stake that he held in Twitter to Musk.
Musk said that Bankman-Fried was wrong in a conversation on Twitter, 12 November, the day following FTX’s bankruptcy filings. “Everyone was talking about him like he’s walking on water and has a zillion dollars,. And that [was] not my impression… there’s something wrong.” Musk also claimed his “bulls— meter was redlining” About Bankman-Fried prior to FTX’s collapse.
“Of course Elon took the $ and then dunked on SBF, because it is all a game that you all aren’t supposed to see: Sam Bankman-Fried, Elon, and a secret text,” Swisher posted a Tweet on Tuesday afternoon.
Musk claimed that Musk was not interested in the truth, and they argued into Wednesday.
Swisher shot back, “There was a time when you cared about the truth @elonmusk. It is gone. I’ll add: Playing to the cheap (and dirty) seats is no way to live. You may be my greatest disappointment in 25 years of covering tech…
“In all seriousness, this is not the you I have known. While there have been lots of mistakes (me too), you had vision and drive and creativity and humor. Now it’s all thin-skinned ego and punching down and really bad dick jokes, just like all the other boys. Long, prolonged sigh,” She added.
Musk also called it the Semafor piece “a lie,” Ben Smith is the editor-in-chief.Thread on Twitter. “As I said, neither I nor Twitter have taken any investment from SBF/FTX. Your article is a lie.”
They were also tweeted by him accusing them of bias “Semafor is owned by SBF. This is a massive conflict of interest in your reporting. Journalistic integrity is [trash].”
