Elon Musk posted some unusual tweets about anime, so the social media site blocked him from accessing his account.
When I say ‘unusual’ tweets, they weren’t really all that strange – if they were coming from a big anime fan. But as Musk usually spends his time tweeting about big ideas and Tesla cars, the site deemed the change of topic suspicious.
As founder and CEO of SpaceX, co-founder and CEO of Tesla, Inc., co-founder and CEO of Neuralink, and co-founder of PayPal, you’d think the billionaire wouldn’t have so much spare time to spend watching videos.
But as it turns out, Musk is a big anime-buff.
Earlier this month, the businessman tweeted his love for the anime movie Your Name, writing:
Love Your Name
Twitter let that one slide, but suspicions grew once he started to further express his love for the animated shows.
On Monday (October 22), Musk tweeted how he loved anime in general, before launching into a thread, adding:
And I own a chibi Wolverine.
He even added in some pictures as evidence of his passion for anime:
The revelations have shown us a whole new side to Musk, but they’ve raised alarm bells for Twitter who thought his account had been hacked by an anime-lover.
Although, if someone went through the effort of hacking their way into the billionaire’s accounts, I don’t think posting about how much he loved anime would be their first move?
Surely not?
Regardless, Musk was locked out of his account, so he couldn’t share any of his likes, dislikes, big ideas or Tesla news with the world.
The SpaceX founder seemed to be locked out for about six hours, with his final anime tweet posted around 12am and his comeback posted at 6am.
When he was able to access his account again, he wrote:
Twitter thought I got hacked & locked my account haha [sic]
According to The Telegraph, Twitter has been cracking down on what it believes to be ‘spam accounts’ recently, by locking an account if it detects sudden changes.
The social media giant would then contact the owner to confirm whether they still have control over it.
Once the user’s account is locked, they can’t tweet, like or retweet anything on the site.
While it seems like Twitter blocked Musk’s account due to the big topic change in his tweets, a lot of people have been suggesting it really happened because Twitter doesn’t like anime.
One person wrote:
I guess twitter don’t like anime lol [sic]
While another agreed, stating:
They would be concerned for anyone who posts about anime.
I’m sure Musk managed to fill his Twitter-free time by coming up with an anime-themed rocket or car which he’ll soon be sending into space.
You just keep doing you, Musk.
If you have a story you want to tell, send it to stories@unilad.co.uk.
Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.