An Update on Elon Musk's 2022

What's that smell? Elon Musk, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla; founder of The Boring Company and Starlink; co-founder of Neurolink and open AI; president and philanthropic leader of the Musk Foundation; and-as of October 28,2022-owner and CEO of Twitter, had a big year. Much of which was consumed with drama over this acquisition. 

Starting in July, when Musk publicly announced he was now the majority shareholder of this social media platform, after having quietly bought up most of the shares, controversy started brewing as this tech mogul first expressed his interest in taking over the company. From there, his cheesy joke turned into a negotiation, which led to an offer that was later withdrawn. The withdrawal of this offer led to a major lawsuit, which was dropped after the tech mogul took back his withdrawal. The result of all this negotiation and drama was Elon's purchase of the platform for 44 billion dollars.

Thanks to this pricey purchase, Musk is no longer the richest person in the world as of November 2022, and it seems he's tightening his belt in response.  Since taking the reins, Elon's laid off nearly half of Twitter's workforce and promised those remaining more strenuous working conditions as the company becomes more "hardcore."

He's also moved some of the cost of this pricey purchase onto his consumers. On Twitter, blue check marks are used to verify the account of public figures. These have always been provided free of charge, but Musk has proposed a new policy in which the user will pay for a subscription to maintain their verified status. 

Now, there are multiple check marks available. A blue check mark is still used to indicate that someone is a public figure-which will soon cost $8 a month to maintain, a gold check mark is used for official business accounts, and a gray check mark is used to represent a government or multilateral institution.

Widespread criticism of this due to how this change could affect free speech and disinformation in an era where both have become such primary concerns have led to Musk-a huge proponent of free speech that claimed the preservation of it to be his motivation for its purchase in the first place-to ban the accounts of many, specifically journalists from the platform. 

Many Twitter users have been boisterously disappointed by these and other differences he's made on the platform, so much so, that-after leaving it up to a poll on the platform for it's users to decide-he's begun looking for someone to replace him as CEO. He says he plans to, "as soon as he can find someone foolish enough to take the job." 

Unfortunately, this acquisition's negative effects have not only affected Twitter as a company and Elon Musk personally, but have decreased his credibility as a business owner as a whole and have led many to question whether he may not be focused enough to maintain control of his autonomous vehicle company Tesla. 

One of the most high-quality stocks of the past several years, Tesla's stock plummeted this year, largely due to the negative publicity surrounding Elon Musk. Beginning 2022, each share was valued at over $360, and to end the year, each was valued just under $110. 

As a primary investor in Tesla, this steep decline has had a major impact on Musk's total net worth-which declined by over $100 billion this year in total. Despite this, in other Tesla news, this autonomous vehicle officially made it into America's bestselling cars list for the first this year.

In positive Musk news, SpaceX, Elon's biggest company, had their best year yet in 2022. The company outperformed its previously set record of 31 rocket launches in 2021-nearly doubling it-with 61 launches total this year. To celebrate on December 30, the company tweeted, "On average, SpaceX launched every 6 days from one of our three sites with 92% of missions completed with flight-proven first stage rocket boosters." Falcon 9, one of these launch sites, now holds the world record for most launches of a single vehicle type in a single year. Musk intends to nearly double this record again in 2023, with 100 launches planned for this year.

In more negative Elon Musk news-this year, Musk garnered more publicity for his avid promotion of cryptocurrency, Dogecoin. Predominantly using Twitter, Musk lost some credibility this year, as the value of this cryptocurrency plummeted, beginning the year at a value of $0.65 and ending it at $0.05.

Many investors question Musk's intention in this promotion, accusing him of "pump and dumping." This is the act of purposely inflating the value of a stock or currency through increased promotion, with the intention to sell it as soon as the secondary investors buy, and-in the financial world-is considered a major no no. This, along with the distraction the acquisition of Twitter brought him, both played major roles in Musk losing the trust of many investors this year, and regaining that could be a long road ahead of him. 

In his personal endeavors, Elon Musk had an interesting 2022 as well. He and singer, Claire Boucher-also known as Grimes-split after a 4-year long "fluid" and on and off again relationship. The couple had two children together, bringing his total to 8 after the 6 he had with his ex-wives. The two split publicly in March, and-not long after-the tech mogul made headlines again, having twins via IVF with one of his senior employees at his brain-chip company, Neurolink.

Personally and outside his child-rearing pursuits, Elon headlined during the internationally broadcast Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial, as well.  Musk was included for his association with Amber Heard, whom he dated before him and Grimes got together. During this trial, it was revealed that there was a question of the two having engaged in an affair while Heard was married to Depp, which exposed an incident of a threesome affair the couple engaged in with Cara Delevigne in 2016 to the public.

It's ambiguous whether this is positive or negative publicity for Musk, but another incident of his promiscuity from 2016 was similarly resurrected this year, and was far less so. A claim against him for sexual misconduct  made headlines as well. He settled this dispute outside of court with a payment of $250,000 against the claim he requested an erotic massage and exposed his genitals to a female flight attendant. This allegedly occurred on a private flight while traveling to London, with Musk offering to purchase her a horse in exchange for her services. 

2022 had its ups for Elon, as well as many downs. His business, personal, and financial life's intersections kept those of us for and against him entertained. After breaking records and his bank account with the purchase of Twitter that he is already calling "foolish," it will be interesting to see what 2023 has in store for this tech mogul.