The engineering manager of Twitter is “broken” now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has purchased the majority ownership of the company and has been added to the board of directors.
Jay Holler went on a tirade on the platform expressing what the news of Musk’s position meant to him and it happened over several days.
Musk conducted a poll about adding an edit button to tweets with was retweeted by Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal who said, “The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.” That prompted holler to quote tweet it, saying “NOW it might be time for an emergency Space.”
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1511278901682704390
“The problem with @elonmusk is that he has demonstrated a pattern of harmful behavior consistently that disproportionately impacts marginalized people, so maybe let’s not give him any more power than he already stole?” he said in another tweet.
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1511285863220662275
Holler went on, enraged after it was announced that Musk was added to the board of directors.
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1511321424354500609
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1511333654835965955
“For the first time, @Twitter leadership includes someone I had proactively Blocked on this platform,” he said.
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1511336852543913990
The two tweets that got the most attention, however, were where Holler said he had been “radicalized” and “broken” by the news.
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1511340324198797316
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1511352693725540355
He went on to post a series of tweets to stories, and Musk’s own tweets, that he believes shows Musk to be a “misogynist,” “sadistic,” and transphobic.
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1511343070268248075
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1511471090706653186
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1511676758499729411
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1501724583161958400
Holler was roundly mocked and attacked on Twitter for his series of tweets. But I was able to engage with him over his opinion, which he is as entitled to as anyone else is, and this is what he said.
I asked him “Is this why so many people get suspended for sharing their opinions? Does everyone making those calls think like you? Why do we all have to agree with what you agree with?”
He explained that “We will never all agree and if we did that would be very sad and boring. I’m no expert on suspensions (and neither are you unless you work on that specifically) but there are terms of service users agree to and when they violate them they are subject to suspension.”
“That said, when a person holds a position of power they have a responsibility to the people they impact, and especially in a leadership position like a board seat. I have witnessed a demonstrated pattern of problematic behavior that informs my opinion of his fitness to lead,” he said.
“That said, of course, this is just my opinion ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and you’re free to disagree. I appreciate you engaged in a non-toxic way,” he said.
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1513144537388134402
https://twitter.com/jayholler/status/1513144706347290624
And that is important. As conservatives it is simple to thump our chests about free speech and then assault someone verbally for exercising theirs. But that is not what free speech is.
As our conversation continued, I found Holler to be a rather nice person who happens to disagree with me on some issues, but that is America. Bullying someone into submission is not being a champion of free speech.
As for Musk, he is preparing to meet with Twitter staff who are “concerned” after he became the largest shareholder of the social media platform.
Musk will hold a town hall with staff at the San Francisco-based firm who are concerned that his new majority ownership will end their woke agenda, The Washington Post reported.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced the AMA, or “Ask me Anything” session, though he did not say when the event would take place, in an email to staff.
“We say that Twitter is what’s happening and what people are talking about right now. Often, we [at] Twitter are what’s happening and what people are talking about. That has certainly been the case this week,” he said in the email on Thursday in which he invited staff to the AMA.
“Following our board announcement, many of you have had different types of questions about Elon Musk, and I want to welcome you to ask those questions to him,” he said.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
