Liberal tech reporter says Elon Musk called her an ‘a–hole’ in recent email

A liberal tech journalist did her part recently to further elevate new Twitter chief Elon Musk to hero status when she complained on her podcast that the world’s richest man allegedly called her an “a–hole.”

Kara Swisher claimed that Musk was unhappy with tweets she posted about the use of his “Starlink” satellite network in Ukraine — the tech beat reporter insisted that her tweets were supportive of Musk during the latest episode of her podcast “On With Kara Swisher.”

“I call ‘em as I see ‘em. I’ll support him when he’s doing great things, and I will tell him when he’s being an a—hole,” Swisher said, as she talked about the relationship she had with Musk after years of covering him. “I’m gonna tell him what I think. I always have and if he doesn’t like it, whatever sir, you don’t have to listen, but I’m telling you the truth.”

Her co-host, Nayeema Raza, inquired about the state of that relationship today after Swisher said that, recently, she and Musk are not on speaking terms.

“He’s not speaking to me,” Swisher replied. “I’m an a—hole.”

“He emailed me this recently,” she explained. “You know, before this, I had asked him for an interview for ‘On,’ and we had a great back and forth about what should be done at Twitter and I was explaining what we had done with Twitter Spaces and he said ‘I love your thoughts.’”

She then delved into the tweets Musk allegedly took offense to.

“And then I tweeted something that he didn’t like,” Swisher said. “I tweeted this Washington Post article which cited an anonymous U.S. defense official talking about Starlink. The official said, ‘Elon’s gonna Elon,’ and I wrote on Twitter, ‘Elon’s gonna Elon kinda says it all.”

That tweet is seen here:

She was responding to a Washington Post piece titled, “Musk threatens to stop funding Starlink internet Ukraine relies on in war,” which was critical of Musk for saying he “cannot fund the existing system indefinitely and send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable.”

Swisher suggested that Musk thought she was being critical of him, saying that she was ultimately supportive of the idea that Musk gets compensated.

“But I didn’t agree with this defense official, I think they should pay Elon, and I said that,” she explained. “And so the next couple of tweets was like, ‘I think he should be paid, he does have them over the barrel and can say what he wants,’ ‘cause I think it was Defense Department’s problem.”

A couple f days later, Swisher said she got an email from the Tesla CEO.

Raza asked her what the email subject said, and Swisher replied, “It just says, ‘You’re an a—hole.’”

Tom Tillison

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