Elon Musk has run into conflict, yet again, this time with the rebranding of Twitter at its headquarters in San Francisco where X now marks the spot – or is it the spat?
Reuters reports that the richest man on the planet – worth an estimated $240 billion – is heading for a clash with the San Francisco city fathers over the huge illuminated X sign over this headquarters. Workers have taken down the blue bird of Twitter that was on. the wall for more than a decade.
Blinded by the light
Apparently, neighbours claim the bright neon light shines through their windows at night and the city planning department is investigating.
Musk appears unrepentant and replied on X to his more than 150 million followers: “Blaze your glory.” He also said that many had offered X rich incentives to move to other cities in the United States.
We are not going anywhere – Musk
“Moreover, the city is in a doom spiral with one company, after another, left or leaving Therefore, they expect X will move too. We will not. You only know who your real friends are when the chips are down,” he wrote on his new social media platform.
Another tiny chapter of an entrepreneur story born in Africa into adversity. His parents split up when he was quite young and he was bullied at school in Johannesburg.
Musk struggled to fit in with beer drinking and barbecues
There was something about the young, introverted, Musk – who loved computers and playing chess – that didn’t fit in with the boisterous, beer-drinking, sport and barbecue culture of white South Africa in the 1980s.
A few years ago I oversaw an interview, for a magazine I was editing in South Africa, with Errol Musk – a pilot engineer and sailor – the father of the world’s richest entrepreneur. It yielded an interesting snapshot into the billionaire as a young man.
The billionaire as a young man in Africa
For a start, according to Musk senior, when the family went to South African poolside parties where people drank beer and talked rugby; Elon was nowhere to be found. He would find the house’s library and read books all afternoon.
“The kind of things he would come up with as a youngster was always surprising. When he was very small, he would ask me ‘Where is the whole world?’ when he was three or four. It was these sorts of questions that made me realise that he was a little different,” says Errol in an interview on radio station 702, in Johannesburg.
Here is a black box with red light called a modem
“In the mid-eighties, I remember him showing me a box with a red light on it and he would say this is a modem. With this, computers can talk to one another. If that computer is on the line then I can talk to a computer in England and ask it questions. He was always switched on.”
Will he get bored?
Switched on, yes, but also with the ability to switch off when bored.
“He is one of those people, and certainly was as a boy, if he suddenly decides it’s not interesting anymore he just kind of drops it,” he says.
Does x mark the drop? I doubt it.
