Elon Musk’s Hellish Twitter Takeover Enables Wild Impersonations, Descends Into Chaos

Elon Musk’s Hellish Twitter Takeover Enables Wild Impersonations, Descends Into Chaos

A fake tweet about insulin from a major pharmaceutical company cost it billions of dollars overnight. Everything going as planned!

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Image for article titled Elon Musk’s Hellish Twitter Takeover Enables Wild Impersonations, Descends Into Chaos
Image: Twitter, Noam Galai/Getty

I know none of us saw this coming, but Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover is not going well. Who might’ve guessed that a capricious, chaotic billionaire with the business instincts of a retired cop—and the sense of humor of a 14-year-old incel in his mother’s basement—buying a website for more than he can afford solely to own the libs wouldn’t go smoothly? Not me!

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The self-identified Chief Twit is quite in over his balding head. Supposedly as a means to raise revenue (but moreso to delegitimize journalists), he introduced $8 “verification” through Twitter Blue subscriptions this week. As anyone could have predicted, giving a blue check to just any account has led to rampant impersonation and confusion, and Twitter is essentially up in flames as we speak. One specific impersonation on the website has cost a pharmaceutical company literal billions of dollars as of Thursday morning—more on that shortly!

In a Twitter Spaces talk on Wednesday, Musk said that Twitter Blue-verified impersonators would be flagged, lose their verification, and not get their money back—but he admitted “they can keep doing this” over and over. In a desperate Thursday night plea, he insisted that users engaging in parody impersonations must include “parody” in their display names—of course, there’s no way to enforce this. By Friday, Twitter paused the new paid verification program until it figures out how to crack down on impersonators. (One idea: Just take the hit to your ego and return to the actual verification system that’s been working for over a decade!)

What’s next for Twitter? Your guess is as good as mine! But as the platform descends into a dumpster fire, all any of us can do is sit back and enjoy the circus. Namely: the most out-of-pocket, deranged impersonations of brands and public figures ranging from Tesla and Eli Lilly to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Ben Shapiro.

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2 / 16

Eli Lilly

Eli Lilly

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“Insulin is free!” a verified account for the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly tweeted out on Thursday. Unfortunately for humanity, this was just another rogue Twitter Blue subscriber. Fortunately for humanity, Eli Lilly did have to verbally state just how evil it is by offering a humiliating clarification (below). But clearly, the damage was already done—the trolling enabled by Musk has cost Eli Lilly literal billions.

After the official brand sent out the above statement, that didn’t even put an end to things, as other verified Eli Lilly accounts put out their own statements:

I bet Eli Lilly is thankful to Musk for this one!

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3 / 16

@TeslaReal

@TeslaReal

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The only thing you really need to know about Musk is that he is perhaps the most thin-skinned of all the thin-skinned billionaires out there, and I suspect a major reason he bought Twitter in the first place—at great loss for himself—was that he couldn’t stomach seeing this photo of himself and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell everywhere. Welp! Now, here it is, being tweeted from an official-looking Tesla account and drawing thousands of likes and retweets.

And some more delightful hits from @TeslaReal before it was suspended by Thursday morning:

And one more for the road:

Image for article titled Elon Musk’s Hellish Twitter Takeover Enables Wild Impersonations, Descends Into Chaos
Screenshot: Twitter

As the proverb goes, all gave some, and some gave all...

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4 / 16

Verified Ted Cruz and Verified Ben Shapiro get into it!

Verified Ted Cruz and Verified Ben Shapiro get into it!

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I’m old enough to remember conservatives celebrating Musk’s acquisition of Twitter as a win. I wonder if verified accounts for Ben Shapiro and Sen. Cruz publicly sexting is what they had in mind!

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Speaking of Ben Shapiro...

Speaking of Ben Shapiro...

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Who’s the real Ben??? Personally, I’d guess the verified Ben with more likes on his tweet.

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6 / 16

Ron DeSantis

Ron DeSantis

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Speaking of conservatives celebrating Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, I wonder what his good friend DeSantis thinks of this little number!

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Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin

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Sure, the impersonations are inevitably going to lead to dangerous, possibly democracy-collapsing disinformation campaigns and misogynist harassment. But at the very least, seriously evil corporations and weapons manufacturers appear to be getting dragged along the way.

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8 / 16

Dunking on the Israel lobby

Dunking on the Israel lobby

Image for article titled Elon Musk’s Hellish Twitter Takeover Enables Wild Impersonations, Descends Into Chaos
Screenshot: Twitter

I recommend a quick Google search of “Elon Musk emeralds South Africa” to understand this reference.

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9 / 16

Verified Elon Musk presents... Twitter Gold!

Verified Elon Musk presents... Twitter Gold!

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Grimes, if you’re reading this—text him back, girl. You alone can put an end to this.

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10 / 16

George W. Bush misses “killing Iraqis”

George W. Bush misses “killing Iraqis”

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Twitter Blue sure has verified accounts for former President Bush and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair feeling nostalgic.

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11 / 16

@BPDeezNutzz

@BPDeezNutzz

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Screenshot: Twitter

In fairness, this is basically verbatim every single one of BP’s lil’ ~environmental justice~ ad campaigns.

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12 / 16

O.J. Simpson

O.J. Simpson

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Screenshot: Twitter

Well, it only came a couple decades late, but here we are.

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13 / 16

@KINGJamez requests a trade

@KINGJamez requests a trade

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In fairness to the Twitter Blue subscriber behind @KINGJamez, they really mastered the NBA player’s syntax and could’ve fooled me. The post drew thousands of likes and retweets and remained up for hours before being flagged by Twitter, mind you.

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14 / 16

Kyrie Irving released

Kyrie Irving released

Image for article titled Elon Musk’s Hellish Twitter Takeover Enables Wild Impersonations, Descends Into Chaos
Screenshot: Twitter

As a terminally online NBA fan, I can guarantee you that if legendary NBA journalists like Adrian Wojnarowski are getting credibly impersonated on here, this website’s days are numbered.

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15 / 16

Pepsi concedes to Coke in the great soda wars

Pepsi concedes to Coke in the great soda wars

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Honestly... (fake) Pepsi is right for this. I’m glad that’s finally settled!

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