Why Elon Musk has suddenly gone ballistic on Twitter

From attacking media to criticising nanotechnology researchers, SpaceX Founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made Twitter his new battleground, mostly replying to users rather than sharing original posts.

According to a Quartz report, Musk has steadily moved away from original posts and retweets to engaging with other Twitter users.

"In May, almost 80 per cent of Musk's Twitter interactions consisted of replies rather than original posts or retweets," said the report on Sunday.

Over the last two months, Musk's tweeting has quadrupled, surging to nearly 400 in May.

"Prior to this month, his average tweets per month was 88 going back to September 2015 (median 84). Something is clearly different, and it's not just the sheer number of tweets," the report noted.

The time Musk devotes to online disagreements "has expanded dramatically".

Amid all his firing tweets, Musk has been highly critical of media, and has even floated an idea of creating a media credibility rating website called "PravDuh!"

"The holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies who lay claim to the truth, but publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie, is why the public no longer respects them," Musk tweeted recently.

Reacting to a user, Musk said last week that he would love to roll out Tesla cars in India but the tough government regulations have forced him to apply the brakes on his India plans till date.

"Would love to be in India. Some challenging government regulations, unfortunately," Musk tweeted in a response to a Twitter user who wrote "No Tesla in India" to him.

"Deepak Ahuja, our CFO, is from India. Tesla will be there as soon as he believes we should," added Musk, who has been talking about bringing Tesla cars to India for some time.

Although he has garnered more followers -- from 21.6 million to 21.9 million -- in May, the public's appetite for his new combativeness may be waning, said the report.

"While the average popularity of each tweet should naturally decline as the number of posts rises (and more are buried as replies), the drop has been precipitous, starting a few months before Musk's latest outbursts. Despite far more followers, his tweets are attracting fewer fans," the report added.

--IANS

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