Crafting the narrative of Elon Musk

It's Been a Minute

NPR

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 8.8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2022

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The saga around Elon Musk's deal to buy Twitter has been just that: a months-long soap opera involving lawsuits and subpoenas, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, even a town hall. But why does Musk — one of the world's richest and arguably most influential men — want with a social media platform?

Host Brittany Luse dives into the dreams and myths surrounding Elon Musk with Jill Lepore, a political historian and host of the podcast Elon Musk: The Evening Rocket. They look back at his science fiction and fantasy influences and ask where his vision could lead.

Then, Brittany brings on senior producer Barton Girdwood to play a brand new game called, Sounds Fake, But OK.

You can follow us on Twitter @NPRITsBeenaMin and email us at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey girl, hey, I'm Brittany Loose and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from MPR.
0:07.0	If you've been following the news or if you've been on the internet at any point in the
0:11.6	past six months, you've probably heard about the drama with Twitter and Elon Musk.
0:17.6	Elon Musk, a critic and legal adversary of Twitter, appears to be turned from the billionaire
0:22.6	Elon Musk.
0:23.6	He's pulling out of the $44 billion takes over a Twitter.
0:26.8	And that's Elon Musk, he's changed his mind about buying Twitter again and is now willing
0:32.3	to go ahead with his takeover.
0:35.7	It all began back in April when Musk made an offer to buy Twitter.
0:40.4	After some resistance, Twitter agreed to a deal.
0:43.0	Worth $44 billion.
0:46.3	That's when things really started to get messy.
0:50.2	Musk accused Twitter of lying about the number of its users that were actually bots or spam
0:54.6	accounts and he moved to call the whole thing off.
0:57.6	Then, the SEC came in to investigate and all through the summer there were lawsuits,
1:03.2	subpoenas, a town hall.
1:05.6	Finally, an early October, Musk announced that he would buy Twitter after all and he
1:11.0	bought it at the original $44 billion price tag.
1:15.1	Now Musk and Twitter have until October 28 to close the deal.
1:19.3	Or else, Musk may have to testify under oath about his claims that Twitter misled him.
1:24.8	I told you it was messy.
1:27.0	But here's the thing I can't wrap my head around.
	...

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