Apple dodged a Tesla-sized bullet by ignoring this advice

So, the Macalope is off Twitter.

He hopes it’s not like that time he went off dairy and then woke up in a Cold Stone Creamery bathroom, his face covered in cookie dough ice cream and the manager banging on the door. That was embarrassing. He’s trying to be stronger this time.

It’s hard! Twitter has been a part of his life for 15 years! Longer than the iPhone! But let’s just say that the current management of Twitter is not working out for the horned one.

You may be amused to recall that it was just five years ago that people were suggesting that Apple should…

Hang on a sec. Swallow any liquids in your mouth. Go ahead. Take your time. Okay, ready? Here we go.

…buy Tesla and make Elon Musk CEO of Apple.

And why was this supposed to be a good idea? Because Elon Musk is a spaceman who makes things and Tim Cook is a poo-poo dum-dum head who cannot innovate. Musk was lauded for making electric cars and batteries and being such a forward-thinker about clean energy. Subsequently, he lit that reputation on fire and threw it in a dumpster behind a burned-down Exxon by embracing cryptocurrencies, which use massive amounts of energy for the sole purpose of keeping a series of Ponzi schemes running.

Now, friends, when you look up “things that have not aged well” in the dictionary you will… not find it because that’s six words. But if it was in there you’d see this quote from the article the Macalope gored in the piece linked to above:

Elon Musk is the unstoppable innovation juggernaut of our time.

His primary innovations over the last few weeks have been firing everyone (then trying to hire a bunch of them back), alienating advertisers, allowing racists and other bad actors back on the platform, and screwing up the meaning of checkmarks. There’s probably a bunch of other stuff but he’s making it hard to keep up with all of it. Now, on the positive side, he has helped foster a whole new crop of wanna-be Twitter replacements, as Mastodon has seen a huge influx of users, and other services such as Hive, Cohost, and Post are also taking off. His innovative moves at Twitter are spurring a whole new market for replacements. Genius.

Can you imagine being stuck on an even smaller planet with this guy? He already can’t help but come in and screw up a thing the Macalope used to like and the Macalope’s never even met him.

He’s also innovated Tesla’s stock price, which started the year at about $400 per share and is now around $169. Still, the latter two digits of that number would likely give Musk a chuckle as he intoned “Nice.” to an empty Twitter 10th floor at three o’clock in the morning.

If you’re reading this and saying “BUT, MACALOPE, WHAT ABOUT FREE SPEECH? WHAT ABOUT FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS?”, first of all, once again, the Macalope must point out that he cannot hear you. That’s not how the internet works. He’s not sure where you got the idea that it did work that way, but it’s wrong.

Second, go read someone else’s article. Shoo. Because that’s nonsense. The First Amendment means the government can’t control what you say. It does not mean that you can walk into the Macalope’s house and describe your colonoscopy in graphic detail and there’s nothing he can do about it. If that seems too complicated for you, here’s a cartoon that can explain it to you. If you want to read about some actual threats to the First Amendment, here you go.

And Musk’s weird beliefs about the importance of making Twitter a haven for racists and liars may run afoul of Apple’s App Store rules. App Store boss, Phil Schiller, has now deleted his Twitter account. As The Verge points out, both Apple and Google have guidelines for acceptable content that represent the kind of experience they want people to have when using apps available from their stores. If Twitter becomes the go-to place for hurling racial epithets at people, it may find itself de-platformed from Apple and Google’s stores.

That’s gonna make things a little difficult for Edge Lord Vader.