It’s no surprise that being the richest person on Earth brings a fair share of controversies. But when that person is Elon Musk, controversies extend far beyond wealth, touching on politics, social media, workplace culture, and thousands of unpopular opinions.

Our experts outlined all of Musk’s business-related controversies, from his acquisition of Twitter to his lawsuit with OpenAI. To do this, we analyzed Musk’s social media posts, articles from reputable news outlets, and press releases.

Note: We use “Twitter” to talk about the events before the social media platform’s X rebrand. For the events that took place after the July 2023 X rebrand, we use “X.”

Elon Musk Controversy – Key Facts

  • Tesla CEO Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, which he later rebranded as X.
  • The rebrand was considered controversial, as Musk introduced paid verification, removed journalists’ legacy verifications, and changed content moderation policies.
  • Other Elon Musk controversies include employee lawsuits, boosting and endorsing conspiracy theories, and his affiliation with Donald Trump.

The Story of the Elon Musk Controversy

Here, we explore Elon Musk’s controversial acquisitions, lawsuits, and interactions in more detail so you can understand more about how he became a cultural icon, for better or worse.

Elon Musk’s Acquisition of Twitter

In October 2022, Elon Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter. He paid $44 billion in cash and took the social media company private. Previously, the company had traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker TWTR.

Earlier that year, Musk had announced his acquisition of a 9.2% stake in Twitter, totaling 73,486,938 shares valued at around $3 billion. This made him the largest stakeholder in the company.

As for the reason why he acquired Twitter, he said the following in an SEC filing:

I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy. However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form.

He continued, “Twitter needs to be transformed into a private company. As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter, and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced.”

Musk stepped down as CEO of Twitter in May 2023 and named media insider Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO. However, he clearly plays a major role in the company to this day and he posts on X multiple times a day.

Controversial Decisions on Twitter

Shortly after Musk’s takeover, 6,000 people were laid off from Twitter. However, a year after the acquisition, Musk admitted he made a mistake. “Some people who were let go probably shouldn’t have been,” he said in an interview with David Faber.

Not all his changes were reversible though. Other controversial decisions he made about Twitter include:

  • Blue tick: In April 2023, Twitter discontinued its legacy verification system, which had previously granted blue checkmarks to eligible accounts. With legacy verification out of the picture, several news organizations, journalists, and public figures lost their blue tick.
  • Rebranding to X: The platform went through a major rebrand in July 2023, adopted the name X, and changed its logo and domain name.
  • Paid verification: Twitter introduced a new verification model, based on a paid subscription of $8 per month. This meant that anyone who paid the $8 monthly fee would be able to get verified on the platform. Launched as Twitter Blue, it was renamed X Premium after the X rebrand.
  • Content moderation policy changes: Under Musk, Twitter reinstated certain banned accounts, with the most famous one being then-former President Donald Trump. The platform was also criticized for openly allowing adult content.
  • Blocking feature: Musk announced that X would make changes to the blocking feature, so users who have been blocked will still be able to view the public posts of the accounts that blocked them.

In September 2024, NBC reported that fewer people were using X. According to data from digital intelligence firm Sensor Tower, the number of X users in the US fell by 23% since November 2022. This represented a faster decline in comparison to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.

Change in daily US app users since November 2022

Twitter Algorithm Controversy

According to The Verge, Elon Musk made changes to the Twitter algorithm in 2023 after Joe Biden’s tweet outperformed his own Super Bowl tweet.

The Verge - Yes, Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first

The Verge’s article alleged that Musk’s cousin, James Musk, urgently requested Twitter engineers to investigate platform engagement. As a result, the engineers built a system called “power user multiplier” to boost Musk’s tweets. Since Musk had previously fired engineers because of his underperforming tweets, his current employees felt the pressure to make the changes.

A current employee of Musk spoke to The Verge, complaining the situation. “He bought the company, made a point of showcasing what he believed was broken and manipulated under previous management, then turns around and manipulates the platform to force engagement on all users to hear only his voice,” they said.

Until recently, the only evidence of this came from anonymous sources who worked for Musk. A new study by researchers at the Queensland University of Technology found evidence that X altered its recommendation algorithm to favor Elon Musk’s account and the accounts of right-wing influencers and pundits. They found a sudden drastic increase in engagement for Musk and conservative accounts on the same day that Musk endorsed Donald Trump for the first time.

Elon Musk suspicious engagement,

Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory and Advertisers’ Backlash

Elon Musk faced backlash after endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory in an X reply, by writing “You have said the actual truth”.

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the anti-hate organization ADL, wrote, “At a time when antisemitism is exploding in America and surging around the world, it is indisputably dangerous to use one’s influence to validate and promote antisemitic theories.”

Musk apologized and called the post his “dumbest ever social media post”. He denied being antisemitic and has since visited Israel and met the far-right leader Netanyahu.

However, his “dumb social media post” had consequences beyond social media backlash. Several media outlets reported that Apple, IBM, Disney, Warner Bros, Paramount, Sony Pictures, and other major companies would stop advertising on X.

Musk has complained many times about these advertiser boycotts and even called our Disney’s CEO Bob Iger directly. In an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times DealBook Summit, he was asked how X was affected by the advertisers’ decision to pull off their ads.

@msnbc

Elon Musk tells fleeing advertisers to, “go f— yourself.” @11th Hour MSNBC explains how Musk is the one who under fire. #elonmusk

♬ original sound – MSNBC

“If someone’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f— yourself,” he said, and added “Including Bob,” referring to Bob Iger, CEO of Disney. Musk’s beef with Disney continued, as he removed Disney+ streaming services from Tesla’s electric cars. He didn’t explain how simply stopping advertising on a platform with rising tides of antisemitism and right-wing conspiracy theories constituted blackmail.

Data suggests that advertisers fleeing X has indeed had consequences. According to ad-tracking company MediaRadar, advertisers spent nearly $744 million on X in the first half of 2024 — about 24% less than the $982 million spent during the same period in 2023.

Affiliations with Donald Trump

Although Elon Musk previously claimed to have voted for Democratic candidates like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, he announced in 2022 that he planned to vote Republican in the 2024 election.

It was eventually revealed that Musk supported Ron Desantis, Trump’s opponent in the presidential primary election, with a $10 million donation. In July 2024, the billionaire officially announced his support for Donald Trump.

He supported Trump financially and promoted his campaign on X, the social media platform he owns. According to Al Jazeera, he donated an estimated $132 million to help elect Trump and other Republicans. He also created the America PAC, a super PAC supporting Trump’s 2024 election campaign.

Musk’s involvement in right-wing politics was criticized, particularly for shifting the culture of X. “Since Elon Musk took over X, the platform has devolved into a hellscape of hate and disinformation — much of which comes from Mr. Musk himself,” Imran Ahmed, head of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), told DW.

After Trump got re-elected, social media platform Bluesky, which is considered an X alternative, experienced over 700,000 new user sign-ups. According to digital intelligence company Similarweb, election day brought both the highest traffic and the highest number of deactivations on the platform.

Twitter and X account deactivations peak after election

OpenAI Lawsuit

Elon Musk was one of the co-founders of and biggest investors in OpenAI.

In 2018, he left the AI company, saying he would build a relevant competitor to Google. OpenAI later revealed that Musk suggested merging the company with Tesla and that they couldn’t agree on a for-profit entity deal.

Over the next few years, OpenAI raised money from several investors, including a $10 billion investment from Microsoft.

Musk expressed his concerns on Twitter, saying “I’m still confused as to how a non-profit to which I donated ~$100M somehow became a $30B market cap for-profit. If this is legal, why doesn’t everyone do it?” OpenAI indeed started out as a nonprofit, dedicated to work on safe open source AI models. However, it was (seemingly legally) spun off as a for-profit company to attract the billions of dollars of investments that it’s currently burning through.

In a blog post, OpenAI pushed back against his claims and said that Musk’s donations were no more than $45 million.

In February 2024, Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that the company had strayed from its original nonprofit mission by prioritizing profit over public good. He dropped the lawsuit after OpenAI published their email exchanges, including the one below.

Screenshot of Elon Musk's email exchanges with OpenAI

Musk filed a new lawsuit in August 2024, saying he had been betrayed by Altman.

“Elon Musk’s case against Sam Altman and OpenAI is a textbook tale of altruism versus greed. Altman, in concert with other Defendants, intentionally courted and deceived Musk, preying on Musk’s humanitarian concern about the existential dangers posed by artificial intelligence,” said the lawsuit.

Tesla Investors’ Lawsuit

Elon Musk was accused of inappropriately selling $7.5 billion worth of Tesla stocks in 2022 to fund his acquisition of Twitter.

According to CNN, Musk sold his shares right after telling his investors that there was “excellent demand” for Q4 2022. However, Tesla’s sales performed worse than expected, causing a 12% drop in Tesla’s stock price.

The graph below shows Tesla’s stock price history, including the steep decline of late 2022 after Musk’s announcement.

Tesla stock price history, with a highlight on late 2022 stock dip

“Musk profited from his misconduct and his exploitation of material and adverse inside information,” said Tesla shareholder Michael Perry, who filed the lawsuit. During the same period, Tesla cut its prices in China, which suggested that Musk was aware of upcoming challenges.

ElonJet Twitter Ban

Jack Sweeney, a Florida college student, tracks celebrities’ private jet use and shares their CO2 emissions on social media. The two most notable celebrities that he tracks are Taylor Swift and Elon Musk. Before 2022, Sweeney shared Musk’s private jet trips on the account @ElonJet.

In 2022, Musk said he would take legal action against Sweeney, saying the account put his son at risk. The same year, @ElonJet was suspended from Twitter, although Musk had previously said he wouldn’t ban it for the sake of free speech. Sweeney publishes entirely public information (plane tracking data) so he didn’t break any laws.

The free speech advocate billionaire was widely criticized for his decision, with critics arguing that the move was hypocritical.

Sweeney started a new account called @ElonJetDelayed in late 2022, this time publishing Musk’s private jet use with a 24-hour delay.

Musk explained that posting someone’s location on a delayed basis would not be a safety problem, whereas real-time location updates could pose a threat. The account @ElonJetDelayed is still available on X.

SpaceX Employees Lawsuit

Eight former SpaceX engineers filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk in 2024, alleging that he fostered a hostile and sexist workplace culture at SpaceX.

The lawsuit came after a 2022 open letter in which SpaceX employees called out Musk’s inappropriate actions. “Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” said the letter. The employees were particularly disturbed by Musk’s controversial tweets and sexual harassment allegations. After the letter was published, the employees got fired.

In the lawsuit, the former employees said that Musk “knowingly and purposefully created an unwelcome hostile work environment based upon his conduct of interjecting into the workplace vile sexual photographs, memes, and commentary that demeaned women and/or the LGBTQ+ community.”

They particularly blamed the X-rated jokes Musk wrote on X, as they believed it encouraged other employees to behave inappropriately.

The 2024 lawsuit is paired with a National Labor Relations Board complaint, citing wrongful termination.

Dogecoin Lawsuit

Elon Musk was accused of using Twitter posts, online influencers, and his Saturday Night Live appearance to manipulate Dogecoin’s price.

Accusations claim he made $124 million from selling Dogecoin after he changed Twitter’s logo to Dogecoin’s logo.

Musk and Tesla won the dismissal of the lawsuit.

Pizzagate Disinformation Controversy

Elon Musk has also faced criticism for allegedly promoting the debunked Pizzagatt conspiracy theory.

Emerging during the 2016 US presidential election, this conspiracy theory falsely claimed that high-profile Democrats were involved in child trafficking, allegedly operating in the basement of a Washington DC pizzeria.

In 2023, NBC News reported that Musk tweeted about the conspiracy theory five times in two weeks. Musk deleted the post in which he wrote “does seem at least a little suspicious” about Pizzagate.

What Can We Learn From the Elon Musk Controversy?

Musk’s controversies contain important business lessons, particularly about acting appropriately and fact-checking at all times.

Here are three key takeaways:

  • Be careful what you post as a public figure: When writing on social media platforms, public figures and companies must consider their impact. Some jokes and comments are off-limits, as they can alienate audiences and damage client relationships. For example, Musk’s engagement with the antisemitic conspiracy theory and openly antisemitic users led to advertisers leaving X, which implied a loss of revenue for the company. X is a huge brand and Elon Musk is the richest person on Earth, so the company was able to survive, but smaller brands may not be able to afford such a big controversy.
  • Leaders’ actions affect the company culture: Whether you’re a business owner, manager, or CEO, your actions have a direct impact on your company’s culture and employees’ well-being. When leaders act a certain way, executives and other employees may mimic the same behavior or accept it as the norm. For example, Musk’s inappropriate jokes on X may have led to a non-inclusive and hostile work culture, which then turned into a lawsuit by former SpaceX employees.
  • Check your facts: On paper, Elon Musk might seem like a trustworthy source, as the founder and CEO of multiple companies. However, we must keep in mind that Musk endorsed several conspiracy theories and he engages in disinformation on a regular basis. Business owners must always double-check facts and consult multiple sources before making decisions, no matter what.

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