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For a billionaire, tech tycoon Elon Musk sure has a thin skin. He has recently taken to getting in fights with random accounts on Twitter, feuding with scientists and journalists and even indie musician Lisa Prank. One of his most head-scratching beefs, though, involved Portland comics artist and software engineer Corey Mohler.
In May, Mohler—creator of the popular Existential Comics series (@existentialcoms)—sent out a tweet claiming that Musk "makes all his money from government subsidies and contracts, and by wildly exaggerating production to pump up stock prices" and comparing him to "the villain from Atlas Shrugged." The tweet went viral, gathering over 9,000 likes and 1,700 retweets to date. Musk, who could have instead been orbiting Earth in a SpaceX rocket while lighting Cuban cigars with million-dollar bills, decided to respond by arguing about which auto companies get the most government subsidies.
"I was super-shocked," Mohler says. "I've tagged people before with hopes that they would respond, but I didn't even consider it because he is so big." Musk ended the back-and-forth by calling Mohler an "ass [top hat emoji]" and blocking him. So what did Mohler learn about Musk from his brief tete-a-tete? "The honest answer, if I can psychologize him, is that he is just addicted to his cult of personality, and extremely immature," Mohler says. "The more I read about him, the more it just seems like he is stuck forever as a high school nerd."
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