A YouTube video claimed to have been made by “hacktivist” group Anonymous targeted Elon Musk for “constantly trolling” cryptocurrency markets.
The video was posted after Musk posted cryptic tweets on Thursday night suggesting he was ending his relationship with Bitcoin, prompting the cryptocurrency to tumble in value.
I am really not a fan of Twitter notifications, but have had to turn them on for your account because otherwise I lose money half of time you tweet. All this to say: please try to tweet responsibly and understand you are messing with people’s lives.
— Patrick Byrnes (@shadowstripes) June 4, 2021
A person wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and speaking with a digitally modified voice said:
“For the past several years you have enjoyed one of the most favorable reputations of anyone in the billionaire class because you have tapped into the desire that many of us have to live in a world with electric cars and space exploration, but recently your carefully created public image is being exposed and people are beginning to see you as nothing more than another narcissistic rich dude who is desperate for attention,”
they continued.
“It appears that your quest to save the world is more rooted in a superiority and savior complex than it is an actual concern for humanity.”
Alongside clips of news reports, the person continues:
“This has been obvious to your employees for a long time, who have faced intolerable conditions under your command for years. It is also obvious to the young children working in your overseas lithium mines, which are destroying the local environment as well.”
The person goes on to say that
“plenty” of other companies are working on space exploration and electric vehicles, but Musk is “the only CEO who has gained a cult following through sh*tposting and trolling the world on social media.”
In the video, Anonymous claimed Tesla “made more money holding Bitcoin for a few months than in years of selling cars,” and that it was “widely believed” that Musk has been “forced to denounce” the company’s involvement with the cryptocurrency in order to retain government subsidies.
“It seems that the games you have played with the crypto markets have destroyed lives,”
the person in the Anonymous video added.
“Millions of retail investors were really counting on their crypto gains to improve their lives… Of course, they took the risk upon themselves when they invested, and everyone knows to be prepared for volatility in crypto, but your tweets this week show a clear disregard for the average working person.”
In a video viewed more than one million times since it was posted on Saturday, the individual cited a number of Musk’s past comments and allegations against him as they said it seems his
“quest to save the world is more rooted in a superiority and savior complex than it is an actual concern for humanity”.
In an attempt to illustrate this claim, they referred to an article on conditions at Tesla factories which they described as “intolerable” for workers, and another which said Mr Musk’s family previously owned an emerald mine in Zambia.
They also pointed to a number of Musk’s past comments, including an instance where he wrote
“we will coup whoever we want” in relation to the US-backed coup on ousted president Evo Morales in lithium-rich Bolivia, and another in which jokingly proclaimed himself “imperator of Mars” in an apparent reference to his desire to colonize the Red Planet – an effort in which he has conceded a “bunch of people will probably die”.
Who is Anonymous
Anonymous is a decentralized international activist/hacktivist collective/movement widely known for its various cyber attacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations, and the Church of Scientology.
Anonymous originated in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global brain. Anonymous members (known as Anons) can be distinguished in public by the wearing of Guy Fawkes masks in the style portrayed in the graphic novel and film V for Vendetta. However, this may not always be the case as some of the collectives prefer to instead cover their face without using the well-known mask as a disguise. Some anons also opt to mask their voices through voice changers or text-to-speech programs.
