On June 25th, 2021, tech entrepreneur and founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, Elon Musk, took to twitter to voice his thoughts on Matt Taibbi’s decision to leave Rolling Stone and start a Substack newsletter.
Presently, Substack has been gaining news attention as it is a platform where independent writers can self-publish newsletters and articles and keep 80-100 percent of the subscription costs. Mr. Taibbi was an infamous political journalist for Rolling Stone for years and made the move recently to pursue his independent writing ambitions in a more profitable manner.
Since Mr. Musk had thousands of eyes on his Twitter account, he highlighted his opinion on Mr. Taibbi’s actions during the transition, saying that he believed it was “disrespectful” to companies that the writer worked with during his tenure.
It seems that their conversation didn’t finish on twitter as later, Mr. Musk had deleted his tweets about the situation. It was soon found out that in a move that could be interpreted as an attempt to be more tactful and delicate in their conversation, the two instead kept their dialogue going over direct messages.
From what can be seen, it was an exchange of various opinions on the matter, with Mr. Taibbi asserting his own case while Mr. Musk wasn’t shy in expressing his disapproval of the decision that was made.
Finally, it looks like the friction between the two have been resolved, as Mr. Musk deleted the tweets, it can be assumed that the fruitful dialogue that was kept behind the scenes kept the situation private, allowing the two to express their contradictions without feeling the pressure of millions of people watching.
In the end, this is a story about how two powerful individuals can engage in a productive dialogue during difficult times and resolve their issues without bringing complete embarrassment to either of them. It is a reminder that a cool head and level-headedness can go a long way in making sure disagreements can be handled efficiently and without damaging the communication lines.