Elon Musk tweets bedside photo of US Constitution
Embattled Twitter boss Elon Musk called the US Constitution the “most treasured item on my bedside table” as the mercurial billionaire gave his millions of followers a glimpse into his private life.
The self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” shared a photo of a set of three books — “The Declaration of Independence,” “The Constitution of the United States of America,” and “Washington’s Rules of Civility” — in a reply to fan account titled “Musk University.”
The account, which is devoted to Musk’s past statements, posted a quote on Monday from the mogul which read: “The Constitution is greater than any President. End of story.”
“May it always be so,” Musk replied. “It is the most treasured item on my bedside table.”
This is the second time in two months that Musk has posted a photo of his bedside table.
In November, Musk shared a photo which included a framed picture of George Washington leading American forces across the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War.
The photo also included Washington’s Flintlock pistol, a book set, four cans of Diet Coke, a Tibetan Buddhism ritual object known as a Vajra Dorje, and a cosplay Diamond Back .357 revolver from the “Deus Ex: Human Revolution” video game.
“My bedside table,” Musk captioned the photo. “There is no excuse for my lack of coasters.”
Musk has been hammered by bad press since his $44 billion takeover of the social media site in late October. He has fired more than half the staff, suspended journalists who have been critical of him, and threatened to yank the app from Apple’s App Store.
Last week, Musk blasted a software engineer as a “jackass” and a “moron” over a dispute about Twitter’s code during a Twitter Spaces group voice chat.
Musk said Twitter would have to do a “total rewrite of the whole thing” if it wanted to have a “really high velocity” during a voice chat hosted by renowned hacker and ex-Twitter employee George Hotz on Wednesday.
Ian Brown, a developer for Netflix who once worked for Twitter, scoffed at Musk’s suggestion.
“Wait, seriously, a total rewrite? That’s your prediction for velocity?” Brown said.
“Yeah,” Musk responded.
“Well, when you say a total rewrite, you mean starting with the skeleton?” asked Hotz.
“Or a bunch of engineers sit down with a whiteboard and say, ‘What is Twitter?’ Revolution or reform?”
Brown responded with a “laughing hysterically” emoji.
Musk replied that “you either needed to amend the crazy stack that exists or rewrite it.”
Brown chimed in once again, grilling Musk over what he actually meant and whether he could “break it down.”
“Who are you?!” an agitated Musk asked.
“What do you mean who am I? I don’t know! You gave me the f—ing mic!” Brown said.
“I mean, man, you’re in charge of the servers and the programming and whatever,” Brown continued.
“What is the stack, Elon? Take me from top to bottom. What does the stack look like right now? What’s so crazy about it? What is so abnormal about this stack versus every other large-scale system on the planet, buddy? C’mon!”
“Amazing! You’re a jackass!” Musk replied.
“Haha, ok! I got no credibility here, buddy,” Brown shot back.
Hotz then muted Brown.
“Good! What a moron,” Musk said.
The spat came a day after Musk said he laid off half of Twitter’s staff and slashed costs in order to save the company from a $3 billion hole in its budget.
Additional Reporting By Thomas Barrabi
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