Following the news that Elon Musk’s offer to purchase Twitter had been accepted, social media was flooded with a picture of the billionaire with Ghislaine Maxwell.
Maxwell was an associate of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and she was convicted last year of sex trafficking of a minor and a number of other crimes related to her association with Epstein. There have been a number of instances of viral pictures of celebrities with Epstein or Maxwell that have turned out to be fake. This one, however, is authentic. Musk and Maxwell were both in attendance at the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscars after party, where they were photographed together. The image can be found on Getty Images. Musk has denied knowing Maxwell, saying that she “photobombed” him at the Vanity Fair party.
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The freak out--on both sides this time--over Musk buying Twitter is just plain stupid.
Democrats are suddenly feigning horror at a billionaire owning Twitter, apparently unaware of who controls the company now, and who controls *all* of these companies, who controls Fox News, the New York Times, and every major media company in the last 100 years.
Republicans are giddy that Trump and other key Republicans will be let back on Twitter, apparently unaware that:
1) Musk has made no such promises and has clearly only spent a few seconds thinking about the problems that Twitter has in moderating content in today's world.
and 2) Republicans being let back on Twitter could make things *worse* for the GOP especially in November because their campaign for swing districts consists of lying the lie that Trump no longer exists when he's still the indisputable leader of the party.
The most likely outcome is that Musk buys Twitter, spends a few months learning what the *actual thing he just bought* really is, and then says in effect, "oh gee, who knew that running Twitter could be so complicated" and keeps the core editorial policy in place save a bit of window dressing.
I think the photo says more about the oscars and vanity fair than it does about Elon Musk. Ghislaine was welcome in that circle of people...