Elon Musk and His Dog: The Unlikely Duo Behind Twitter
Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and founder of Tesla and SpaceX, is known for his ambitious and sometimes controversial ventures. But one of his most surprising moves was buying Twitter, the social media giant, for $44 billion in November 2022. Since then, Musk has made drastic changes to the company, including laying off thousands of employees, changing the logo to a doge meme, and jokingly appointing his pet dog Floki as the CEO.
Floki is a Shiba Inu, a breed of dog that originated in Japan and became popular online for its cute and expressive face. The doge meme features a Shiba Inu with comic sans captions that often start with "wow" or "such." The meme also inspired the creation of dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that Musk has frequently endorsed and boosted on Twitter.
Musk adopted Floki in September 2022 and named him after a character from the TV show "Vikings." He announced his new pet on Twitter with a photo of Floki sitting on a Tesla car seat.
Since then, he has posted several pictures and videos of Floki on his Twitter account, which has over 100 million followers.
One of his most viral tweets was on February 14, 2023, when he shared a photo of Floki sitting at a desk and wearing a black shirt with the word "CEO" on it. "The new CEO of Twitter is amazing," Musk wrote in his tweet, which received over 2 million likes and 500,000 retweets.
Musk has also dressed Floki in a black turtleneck, similar to the ones worn by Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of Theranos who was convicted of fraud and sentenced to prison. In an interview with BBC News on April 11, 2023, Musk said he dresses his dog like Holmes because "he's got a husky voice."
Musk also claimed that Floki is the one in charge of Twitter and that he himself is not the CEO. He said he sleeps on a couch at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco sometimes and that Floki sleeps with him. "He's a great dog, very alert, and it's hard to get anything by him," Musk said.
Musk's affection for his dog has also influenced his business decisions. On April 3, 2023, he replaced Twitter's bird logo with the Shiba Inu meme. Following this change, the price of dogecoin soared 20%. A meme cryptocurrency token named after Floki rose 200% in value this year, beating out other Musk favorites like dogecoin and Shiba Inu.
Musk's takeover of Twitter has been met with mixed reactions from users and investors. Some have praised him for bringing innovation and excitement to the platform, while others have criticized him for being irresponsible and erratic. Some former employees have sued him over the mass layoffs and alleged breach of contract.
Musk has said that he bought Twitter because he believes in free speech and wants to make the platform more fun and engaging. He has also said that he plans to step down as CEO once he finds a suitable successor. But until then, it seems that Musk and his dog will continue to make headlines and memes with their antics.
