Narrator correspondent james jacoby investigates elon musks expanding influence. I am trying to do good for humanity and the future of civilization. Narrator with company insiders. What was itike for you . For the first time in a long time i was terrified. Narrator and industry experts. I thought hed be a good owner. Why . Because he has the money, the means, and the creativity. Narrator how he is changing the social media platform. We must protect free speech. Ive never seen a billionaire own a media platform that so obviously is using it as a personal platform. Narrator and the implications for free speech. Since musk took over what would you say your Main Findings have been . Number one, i would say harassment has increased. Massive rebranding of twitter. Misleading posts about the ongoing Israeli Palestinian conflict. This guy, amazing Success Story who decided to go buy twitter because he cares so much about the First Amendment. Foreign disinformation, do you agree thats a threat . Yeah, no one appreciates that. But the First Amendments the First Amendment. Narrator now on frontline. Elon musk . The worlds richest man. Has outdone himself. Elon musk. Narrator elon musks twitter takeover. he wants to shake things up. When things are calm, he seeks out storms. Frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. And by the corporation for public broadcasting. Additional support is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. Park foundation, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. The john d. And Catherine T Macarthur foundation committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More at macfound. Org. And by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. And Additional Support from koo and patricia yuen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. Launch autosequence initiated a. K. A. The holy mouseclick for 3 45 liftoff, falconheavy. tweet posts crowd cheering and applauding launch direct on countdown one. This is Spacex Falcon heavy, go for launch. Ten, nine, eight. Side booster ignition. Six. James jacoby it had all the elements of a perfect day for elon musk. Two, one liftoff go, falcon heavy jacoby a test launch of his latest reusable rocket, the most powerful in the world, capable of deep space exploration. cheering loudly jacoby it was a crucial step toward his ultimate goal, the conquest of mars. Elon musk, i think, gets his most pleasure out of rocket ships. And at moments when the rockets go off, thats when the childish pleasure comes out. crowd cheering loudly t plus 30 seconds, if you can hear me over the cheering, falcon heavy heading to space on her test flight. He doesnt usually like having pleasure. He doesnt savor the moment. But he does when its a rocket launch. Camera views from inside the payload fairing, falconheavy. tweet posts jacoby throughout the day, musk provided running commentary at his favorite place to express himself, the social media site twitter. Upper stage restart nominal, apogee raised to 7,000 kilometers. tweet posts hes a performer, he likes it. He likes it, he likes playing elon. I ear, he thinks hes iron man. crowd cheering and applauding jacoby right on cue, musks rocket discharged his own cherry red tesla, complete with a mannequin in the drivers seat. cheering elon musk has outdone himself this time. Normally, for a new rocket, you know, it launched like a block of concrete. I mean, thats so boring. laughs its still tripping me out. I mean, im trippin balls here. laughs jacoby the electric car and the reusable rocket were part of a vast Business Empire from neurotechnology to Artificial Intelligence to a web of satellites encircling the earth that has made elon musk one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. View from spacex launch control. Apparently, there is a car in orbit around earth. tweet posts jacoby and the app he was using to livetweet the launch a few years later, that would be his, too. Elon musk puts in an offer to buy twitter. Elon musk and twitter announced a 44 billion deal today. He says he wants to transform the company. Well, i think its very important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech. Jacoby for the past six months, weve been investigating elon musks controversial purchase of twitter, how its expanded his influence into politics at a time of deep division across america. Now weve got someone whos going to take over twitter who actually believes in the constitution and free speech. Jacoby . And what it means for one of the worlds most important platforms for news and political debate to be under the control of one man. This is a human being that were giving all of this power to, and there are very few checks on that power right w. Jacoby this is the story of elon musks latest mission and its farreaching consequences. A new name for Twitter Twitter owner elon musk has replaced the iconic bird logo with an x. This came with almost no warning as he made the announcement that the platform will now be known as x. Com. Today, construction crews blocked a lane on Market Street to take down the twitter sign letter by letter. Passersby stopped, clicked, and shared on social media what was happening. cameras clicking i dont know what the thought process is. This is probably the dumbest thing ive ever seen. I think its an ego thing. tool whirring jacoby over the span of just a few days in july 2023, twitter disappeared and became x named after elon musks favorite letter. You know what . Elon musk thinks hes batman, and im over it. The former twitter building now home to x and a giant x sign, and the neighbors say the lights coming from that x sign are simply blinding. Jacoby it was the end of a brand that had grown into a global icon since its foundi 17 years ago. There is a new service, and supposedly it is the next big thing. Its a name you cant forget, its called twitter. Twitter. Twitter. Twitter. Twitter. What is twitter . Its stupid and lame and small. Yet master blogger Robert Scoble cant keep his fingertips off. Twitter is rath addictive. Were looking at my twitter account, and. Jacoby twitter was founded in 2006 as a simple messaging platform where users posted about daily life. Users no longer need a pc or a blog. Messaging can be typed by cellphone. Thats its selling point. Jacoby but it quickly evolved into what became known as the global town square. What made you want to get up and do something today . Twitter. It felt like it was where the conversation was happening. If there was a news story that dropped on the New York Times, it was debated on twitter. If a journalist like me felt like their story was going viral, it was going viral on twitter. You sent me a tweet. The queen started tweeting. The popes first tweet. It had famous people across sports, media, politics. John obviously needs to work on his typing skills. laughing and just, like, generally funny people who were good at twitter, and the kind of combination of all of those things felt like it was where the conversation was happening. I just type something into my iphone and boom, its in their brains. Jacoby elon musk joined the conversation in 2010. Please ignore prior tweets, as that was someone pretending to be me. This is actually me. tweet posts jacoby at the time, the south africanborn entrepreneur was already rich and had a reputation for taking risks. Hed used the fortune he made as a founder of paypal to start a Rocket Company and to buy a stake in tesla, a fledgling electric car company that, under his leadership, would revolutionize the industry and earn musk praise as a pioneer in the fight against climate change. phone buttons clicking on twitter, he started sharing books he liked. tweet posts . And random observations about the world. Compared to past, todays world is fantastic. tweet posts i liked elon. I liked, i thought he was quirky and interesting and creative. Well, you could warm mars up over time with greenhouse gases, and kind of the opposite of what were doing on earth. laughing this is great. I was in great admiration, because most people in Silicon Valley are talking about stupid things or making dating apps. He was doing significant stuff. Thanks for having me, its great to see you guys. Thank you for coming, i really appreciate it. You kept your promise, which was nice. Jacoby kara swisher writes about Silicon Valley and has known musk for more than 20 years. Shes interviewed him multiple times. You started covering musk, i mean, even before paypal, right . Yeah, yes, and there was a million startup people like him in Silicon Valley. But i remember him. Jacoby and what, what were your impressions of him then . I paid pretty good attention to him, but not a lot, particularly. Buwhen he started doing the stuff around spacex and bought tesla from the actual founders that was interesting, because he was different. The real big breakthrough thats needed with rocketry is a truly reusable rocket. How do you split your time between car and rocket . Well, its usually about 50 50. He was a smart person doing big things. And so, there werent, there, literally cant think of someone who was doing as big things as he was. Whats going on with you and twitter . Its your happy place. Some people. Some people use their hair to express themselves, i use twitter. Jacoby but there was another side to musk that swisher came to know over the years. Hes such a quirky personality and an unusual sense of humor that, much more juvenile than the other boys theyre all boys but, you know, it was even more so. A lot of fart jokes or penis jokes and, you know, whatever. You know, he liked those, he thought they were hysterical. Am reading robert massies book on catherine the great. Yeah, i know what youre probably thinking did she really bleep a horse . tweet posts jacoby for musk, twitter was the perfect outlet. Twitter has always been a place where you can be very honest. There were a lot of sassy comments, a lot of wit, and yeah, a lot of things that riled people up. That was literally what twitter was for. Twitter was the free speech wing of the free speech party, and didnt have any rules. That was very much the approach when these companies were starting. I love twitter. tweet posts elon musk is more impetuous, more impulsive, more addicted to things than anybody ive ever seen. Thats what drives him. When he gets riled up, he either tweets or plays video games. Jacoby musk wouldnt talk to frontline, but biographer Walter Isaacson spent the past two years shadowing him. You know, as a kid, he was bullied on the playground. And he was a scrawny kid, so he kept getting beaten up. Theyd push him down the concrete steps and bloody his face, some of the bullies. And those scars have always been with him. Whenever he gets into a dark place, he remembers that playground, and he goes dark. And in some ways, twitter is the ultimate global playground, except for, the scrawny kids and the smart kids get followers. They dont get smashed into the concrete steps. You use your tweeting to, to kind of get back at critics. Rarely. You kind of have little wars with the press. Twitters a war zone. If somebodys gonna jump in the war zone, its, like, okay, youre in the arena. Lets go. Jacoby musks natural affinity for twitter earned him millions of followers, then tens of millions. Elon musk was insanely popular on twitter. Hed always had a ton of followers, but he was inching up to being the most followed person on twitter, and it felt like everything he touched turned to gold in terms of follower count. So if he interacted with someone, suddenly that persons follower count shot up. It just felt like there was so much engagement and interest in everything he did. Elon had evangelists. He attracted a kind of very online, mostly male following that wants technology to save the world. It was very clear to me that his followers had this kind of brotherly sense, or, my cool older brother, my cool uncle, my cool dad, who is trying to fix the world for me. Tesla shares surging following c. E. O. Elon musks cryptic tweet saying. Its added a lot of value to his, you know, wealth and to the value of his companies. Well, shares of palo altobased tesla have jumped more than two percent following this mysterious teasey message from c. E. O. Elon musk he wrote. Its, like, enabled tesla to raise money. Its increased the size of his fortune. And thats from twitter, yeah. Jacoby this is marketing. Yeah. Tesla says, we dont really spend on advertising and marketing because elon musk is on twitter. Jacoby it was a similar approach to another businessman who had mastered the art of twitter. I have a big voice, i have, you know, millions and millions of followers on twitter, and when i say something, people. Some people dont like it, but most people do like it. Donald trump used twitter for years to pump himself, his businesses, his show. And it was how he got this massive following. What a crowd. audience cheering and elon used twitter the same exact way. Theres very little difference. Jacoby similar playbook. Similar playbook. You know, if i tweet something, cnn and fox, all of a sudden, they say, we have breaking news, donald trump has jt made a. Im sitting there tweeting, bing, bing, bing. Jacoby Donald Trumps use of twitter to circumvent the media first as a candidate, then as president elevated twitter to the most influential political platform in america. President trump tweeted to announce his firing of his secretary of veterans affairs. President trump tweeting out licy on gun safety in our nations schools. President trump tweeting moments ago Rex Tillerson out as secretary of state. Twitter skyrocketed to a level of prominence that i dont think its founders really expected. Is there an effort within the white house to try to rein in the president s twitter habit . It also took on this central role in democratic deliberation that i dont think anybody could have expected a single tech platform to do. Jacoby but for most of this time, musk had steered clear of political controversy on twitter. To be clear, i am not conservative. Am registered independent and politically moderate. tweet posts i never knew elons politics. Like, they were all over the place. He voted for obama. He was a big obama supporter, i remember. He liked obama better than i did. You never knew where he was gonna come down politically. You didnt. Like, i didnt ever feel he had any big point of view. California is now under a statewide stayathome order. Jacoby the pandemic would spark a shift in musk that, like so much in his life, would play out on twitter. The coronavirus panic is dumb. tweet posts i think elon musks tweets are a lot more fun when stocks go up and its a bull market. When its more serious like this, it feels a little like. You know, not the time. Yeah. Not now, elon. He had a point of view about, that the, the virus was not dangerous. And that might have been, but at the time, people did not know. And it could have gone a lot of different ways. And a milln people died. At one point he was, like, i Read Everything and i now know, and im, like, thank you, dr. Musk. And i was, like, you dont know anything. Thats, like, ridiculous. Well, theyre wrong about the maskwearing, or, theyre wrong about the dont touch thing. I said, well, they didnt know, and now they know, its called science. In california, its 40 million residents are in lockdown. Jacoby at the time, the government had ordered mus to close his tesla factories in california. I mean, he was pissed that his factories were, you know, forced to close, right . Yes, ultimately, yes, thats the thing, is, he wanted them there and he wanted them working. He thought it was, the. It was an existential crisis if tesla didnt succeed. He really, for the world, for all of us. And then it got weird. tweets posting free america now. Give people their freedom back. Hospitals in california have been halfempty this whole time. Now give people back their freedom. Jacoby musk told his employees that he intended to defy orders and go to work. Elon musk, the c. E. O. Of tesla, is defying stayathome orders, daring authorities to arrest him by reopening his california factory. C. E. O. Elon musk tweeted, i will be on the line with eveone else. If anyone is arrested, i ask that it only be me. cameras clicking jacoby musk aired his frustrations on a tesla earnings call. Jacoby musks rhetoric on covid would win him an unexpected ally in President Trump, who tweeted, california should let Tesla Elonmusk open the plant, now. Musk tweeted back. Thank you tweet posts when you say civilizations fragile, do you mean because of this covid19 bleep thats going on right now . Whats that . I never heard of it. Its this thing. Jacoby he also found a sympathetic ear with joe rogan, the most popular podcaster in the country. In general, i think thats, like, we should be concerned about, um, anything thats a massive infringement on our civil, civil liberties. Yes. Yeah, my, my opinion is, ifomebody wants to stay home, they should stay home. I say if somebody doesnt want to stay home, they should not be compelled to stay home. phone buttons clicking jacoby in may, a cryptic tweet from musk signaled his shifting politics. When he tweets, take the red pill, a line from the matrix, it means, question this ideology that may have been imposed. Try to find out the real truth. All im offering is the truth, nothing more. But it was mostly a signal that he had joined that. Id call it the somewhat conspiratorial people on the right, who feel that the media and the establishment are imposing a narrative on us. car horns blaring today, as protests erupted across the country, many governors say its still too soon to lift restrictions. Jacoby musks position on the pandemic aligned him with a growing chorus of conservatives who felt their personal liberty was under attack from all sides. Its our First Amendment right. Jacoby the government, the scientific establishment, the press, and, increasingly, social media. He was also noticing that on twitter, if you said that lockdowns could cause more harm than good, youd be kind of repressed on twitter. So this made him upset. Theyre saying to us, if you dare go against what we say is true not