Elon Musk Appears to Take Swipe at the Amount of Power Mark Zuckerberg Holds in the Social Media World

Elon Musk addressed Mark Zuckerberg’s stronghold in the social media world at a Ted Talk on Thursday while he was discussing the offer he made that day to buy Twitter outright and take it private. Musk offered $43 billion to purchase the company.

During the Ted Talk, Musk makes a reference to Zuckerberg as “Zuckerberg the XIV” who will be ruling the social media conglomerate, Meta. Many see this as a correlation between Zuckerberg and Louis XIV. Louis XIV also known as Louis the Great or the Sun King. He ruled France for 72 years from the age of 4 until the year before his death and considered himself God’s representative on Earth, thus the nickname Sun King.

After discussing how he would like to handle Twitter’s algorithm, Musk jumped to social media ownership. “As for media sort of ownership, I mean you’ve got sorta, Mark Zuckerberg owning Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. And with a share ownership structure that will have Mark Zuckerberg the XIV still controlling those entities, like literally,” Musk said.

Mark Zuckerberg the 14th…like literally. #ted #twitter ⁦@elonmusk⁩ pic.twitter.com/Znh1KH5Z1f

— Mira Veda (@MiraVeda) April 14, 2022

Last month, Musk started buying up shares of Twitter and for a short time became the largest shareholder of Twitter, Vanguard quickly upped its position to be slightly larger than Musk’s position. Musk had at the same time been sending out tweets addressing Twitter’s algorithm and lack of free speech or exchange of ideas on Twitter. Twitter is supposedly a ‘town square’ but has banned many from being a part of the conversation for what they have deemed ‘wrong think’.

Musk was offered a seat on Twitter’s board, which he declined after as there were many stipulations that came along with taking the seat. He then later made the offer to take the company private. Twitter has seemingly declined Musk’s offer. Many are calling Twitter’s actions a poison pill. Musk also announced he had a Plan B which it seems we will see soon as he continues to call for free speech on Twitter.

Elon Musk’s Full Ted Talk: