Oh, Elon.
Elon Musk deleted Facebook pages for Tesla and SpaceX in response to #DeleteFacebook
“Looks lame anyway,” Musk tweeted.
Earlier this week, WhatsApp co-founder and former Facebook employee Brian Acton went to Twitter to encourage people to #DeleteFacebook in light of the company’s recent privacy scandal with Cambridge Analytica.
Turns out Elon Musk, the eccentric CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla, thought it was a great idea.
After tweeting back to Acton asking, “What’s Facebook?” someone suggested Musk delete SpaceX’s corporate Facebook page.
“I didn’t realize there was one. Will do,” he replied.
Then someone suggested he also delete Tesla’s corporate Facebook page.
“Definitely. Looks lame anyway,” Musk replied.
And that was that. Both pages appear to have been deleted. SpaceX’s page had more than 2.7 million followers.
It’s possible Musk is just playing around and the pages will be restored — and I’m sure Facebook and the social media employees at SpaceX and Tesla hope that’s the case. SpaceX utilized its Facebook page to show rocket launches on Facebook Live.
But that’s not really Musk’s style. When Sonos announced on Friday that it would suspend advertising on Facebook for a week, Musk replied, “Wow, a whole week. Risky ...”
There might be something deeper to this Musk vs. Facebook situation. If you’ll recall, Musk and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had a little beef last year when Zuckerberg suggested that people who created doomsday scenarios about artificial intelligence were irresponsible. Musk has said often that he thinks AI could ultimately lead to the end of civilization as we know it.
“I’ve talked to Mark about this. His understanding of the subject is limited,” Musk said in response to Zuckerberg’s comments. Well okay then!
To add to the tension between the two CEOs, when a SpaceX rocket accidentally exploded during a 2016 launch, it was carrying a Facebook satellite. “I’m deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite,” Zuckerberg said at the time.
Musk deleting his company Facebook pages is certainly funny. But if they stay deleted, and others see how easy it is for a major corporation to cut Facebook out of its life, maybe others will follow along. And that would be bad news for Zuckerberg.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
