Stephen King isn’t the only writer who’s engaged in a war of words on Twitter with new owner Elon Musk.
Veteran tech journalist and co-host of the Pivot podcast Kara Swisher, who has written for New York magazine and The New York Times, retweeted Tuesday’s Semafor article that reported Musk had in May secretly asked Sam Bankman-Fried of now-bankrupt FTX to make a $10 billion investment in the now-private company. Bankman-Fried declined, but did agree to roll the $100 million stake he owned in Twitter to Musk.
In a Twitter spaces conversation on Nov. 12, the day after FTX filed for bankruptcy, Musk knocked Bankman-Fried, saying, “Everyone was talking about him like he’s walking on water and has a zillion dollars,. And that [was] not my impression… there’s something wrong.” Musk has also claimed his “bulls— meter was redlining” about Bankman-Fried before FTX collapsed.
“Of course Elon took the $ and then dunked on SBF, because it is all a game that you all aren’t supposed to see: Sam Bankman-Fried, Elon, and a secret text,” Swisher tweeted on Tuesday afternoon.
The argument continued into Wednesday, when Musk accused her of no longer caring about the truth.
Swisher shot back, “There was a time when you cared about the truth @elonmusk. That is long gone. I’ll add: Playing to the cheap (and dirty) seats is no way to live. You may be my greatest disappointment in 25 years of covering tech…
“In all seriousness, this is not the you I have known. While there have been lots of mistakes (me too), you had vision and drive and creativity and humor. Now it’s all thin-skinned ego and punching down and really bad dick jokes, just like all the other boys. Long, prolonged sigh,” she added.
Musk also called the Semafor article “a lie,” telling editor-in-chief Ben Smith in a Twitter thread. “As I said, neither I nor Twitter have taken any investment from SBF/FTX. Your article is a lie.”
He also accused them of bias, tweeting, “Semafor is owned by SBF. This is a massive conflict of interest in your reporting. Journalistic integrity is [trash].”
