If the Uber guy is anything to go by, it won’t just have been a tour. Hope he had a good telling off.
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The Musk/Trump relationship is, not to put too fine a point on it, weird as heck.
Yet, when looking beneath the surface, there are things that make sense.
Largely the fact that Tesla and SpaceX have only got to the point where they are now thanks to billions in government subsidies. The best thing about these, for Tesla, being that they get investment without having to give up equity. Which, on the one hand, one might consider very smart; on the other hand, it’s exploitation to line one’s own pockets without having to give back.
Knowing that, the sucking up to Trump - and there has, undeniably, been sucking up (unblocking his account, begging him to come back to Twitter, posting weird memes) - starts to make a form of sense. It doesn’t matter what Musk might feel personally, what’s important is that he’s angling to create and strengthen a relationship that will prove advantageous for him and his businesses down the line.
It’s not entirely dissimilar from that time you were only mates with that one person at school because they had a Saturday job at Smith’s and if you were nice to them they’d use their employee discount card to buy that new console game you wanted to you.
That Musk has now pivoted from Trump to De Santis is no doubt two-fold; the first being that Trump has kicked back too many times now, so that’s one reason to decide it’s time to cut and run. The other is that looking at the wider picture and seeing other parties move away from Trump, it’s an attempt to hitch his wagon to what might be the next likely Republican president. Gotta suck up now for that sweet, sweet government coin later.
If that sounds absurdly cynical and self-interested, then it also sounds classic Musk.
There’s something kind of crazy about a world where Donald Trump has decided that Elon Musk is too toxic to associate with. That says a hell of a lot about how far Musk’s stature has fallen following all the Twitter mess.
If one where to look at what De Santis stands for, it’s blatently obvious that this is a really weird person for someone to support if they are a genuine believe in free speech like Musk claims to be. Which again says more about Musk that anything else.
tl;dr, Musk thought he needed Trump more than Trump needed him, found out the hard way that wasn’t the case, and is now trying to hitch his wagon elsewhere instead. All in the service of, ultimately, the almighty dollar.
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I can’t help but think that the only reason apple gave Elon the time of day and invited him round was to avoid the Elon stans going after apple staff.
Possibly they were also scared of Elon drumming up attention to their anti competitive practices, both options aren’t good because I suspect if it came to it apple wouldn’t remove twitter from the store at all or until long after they should.
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Given Tesla’s proprietary charging system I don’t think he’s likely to go too far on the anti-competition stuff
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Kanye now suspended (and rightly so) but now Musk is fighting his own fans because he’s not allowing “free speech”
Kanye is a very unwell person, and only Nazis could defend him posting an image of a swastika over a star of David 
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Even Nick Fuentes thinks he’s gone ‘too far’ (you are supposed to thinly veil your racism apparently, not sure exactly where Fuentes’ line is but Kanye has somehow managed to cross even that)
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When someone shows you a clip with Ye speaking, and the most sensible person in the room is… Alex Jones (Infowars dude, not Welsh One Show woman)? 
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More brilliant businessing from top businessman Elon Musk:
Elon Musk’s $8 Twitter Blue subscription is coming back with phone number verification and a higher price on iOS
I can’t wait to hear it has been booted off the app store after all (you’re not supposed to surcharge).
Ware you referring to the increased price relative to the web? Surprisingly enough, Apple do allow it.
Totally worth it for security and peace of mind! 
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They do? For transparency, I’ll link where I heard otherwise:
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I’ve also read anecdotally on Twitter that it’s fine.
I did literally quote “surprisingly”, so I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it wasn’t true!
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It’s a common misconception that seems to stem from an assumption that it did used to be a rule. I personally don’t recall it ever being one, and it’s something Spotify has done for many years.
But at present, it is something Twitter are certainly allowed to do, and they’ll be far from the only company who does it.
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Think they are good as long as they don’t promote in the app that it is cheaper to buy on the web. It’s one of the App Store quirks, likely from a judgement at some point many years ago.
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The first rule of Fight club…
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Yeah if I’m paying £11 a month I want 0 ads.
Ta.
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