E-Paper
Livid Elon Musk left Super Bowl early over Biden's viral tweet, got algo tweaked for boost
Elon Musk and President Biden posted their support for the Philadelphia Eagles, but the president's post had 29 million views compared to Musk's 8.4 million.
‘Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter’, a book by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac which was released in February of 2023 captures the surprising actions of the world's richest man. In one of the anecdotes from the book, the authors detailed how Elon Musk flew out of the Super Bowl when one of his posts didn't fetch as many numbers as US President Joe Biden's did. (Also Read: Elon Musk calls out Vinod Khosla for ‘no plebs allowed’ sign on public beach, plans a BBQ party there)
What happened during the Super Bowl 2023?
Rupert Murdoch invited Musk to the Super Bowl, where he was seated in one of the finest seats in the house, but instead of enjoying the game, he was bitterly hooked to his phone. He and President Biden both posted their support for the Philadelphia Eagles, but the president's post had 29 million views compared to Musk's 8.4 million, despite Biden having considerably fewer followers on the social media site. Furious, Musk insisted that his engineers investigate the reason behind Biden's tweet outperforming his own. On a Sunday night, he left the game early to return by plane to his San Francisco office, where scores of staff members had been called in to meet him, reported The NY Times. (Also Read: Elon Musk breaks down how X's algorithm really works and why it gets it wrong)
What did the people at X do for Musk's algorithm?
The outlet also informed that in the end, the programmers modified X's algorithm to favour Musk's postings, displaying them in users' feeds regardless of whether they follow him or not. "In effect, Musk's tweets would have higher priority over any other post; a man allergic to criticism had bought himself the largest audience in the world and hoped for praise," wrote Conger and Mac in the book.
