Elon Musk Just Removed Tesla and SpaceX from Facebook
Elon Musk, founder, CEO of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla Inc. John Raoux/AP File Photo
He's not joking.
Elon Musk wasn’t joking when he said he said he’d take down SpaceX’s Facebook account this week. The co-founder of WhatsApp (which Facebook acquired in 2014) Brian Acton tweeted on March 20 that “it is time.”
It is time. #deletefacebook
— Brian Acton (@brianacton) March 20, 2018
After feigning ignorance of the social media network, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO admitted he’d never seen the company’s Facebook presence and committed to removing it.
I didn’t realize there was one. Will do.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
Twitter users were quick to see if Musk was serious. After being asked when he’d remove the pages, he responded to Quartz reporter Mike Murphy, denying trolling the internet.
What, a troll, me!? How dare you, sir!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
A few minutes later, the Facebook pages for Tesla and SpaceX were no longer up. Both apparently had millions of Likes, and hosted the companies’ (and Musk’s) frequent postings on launches, both products and rockets.
It appears as if the pages weren’t deleted, but merely taken down temporarily. In the meantime, there are a multitude of “fan club” pages for SpaceX and Tesla to fill the void.
Musk doesn’t seem like he’s coming back anytime soon.
Instagram’s probably ok imo, so long as it stays fairly independent. I don’t use FB & never have, so don’t think I’m some kind of martyr or my companies are taking a huge blow. Also, we don’t advertise or pay for endorsements, so … don’t care.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018