Elon Musk was basically the disruptor-in-chief of 2023, stealing the spotlight for all sorts of reasons, and not always the right kind.
Apart from his Twitter drama, he got into a spat with Zelenskyy and Ukraine. They wanted to use his Starlink for some action in Russia’s Crimea, but Elon said no way. This came after he generously offered Starlink to Ukraine during their tussle with Russia int their war that started back in 2021. Weirdly, instead of praising him for helping out, people in the media and politics started asking why one person should have so much power in deciding the outcome of wars.
Elon also had beef with big companies ditching ads on his Twitter, saying it was too much trouble for their image. Elon hit back, especially calling out Disney’s Bob Iger and pointing out their hypocrisy for still advertising on other controversial platforms like Instagram and the Chinese owned TikTok.
All this drama kind of overshadowed the big release of Tesla’s Cybertruck. It finally hit the streets, but surprise, it was pricier and had fewer features than when Elon first hyped it up on social media five year before.
And then in September, Elon dropped his biography. Written by the same person who did Steve Jobs bio, Walter Isaacson, it spills all the details about Elon’s wild ride—a guy who broke all the rules and played a big part in pushing us into the age of electric cars, private space trips, and AI. and he took over Twitter, too! It solid 228,521 copies in its first eight weeks of sales.
This post is part of the What Happened in Tech in 2023 series.
