I admire John Gruber.
I think he’s a great writer. I think he’s smart as hell. He’s annoyingly funny, too. I am impressed and inspired by his success with both Daring Fireball and The Talk Show.
I get excited when John links to one of my apps or articles. When he linked to my story about relaunching Strategery, that led to a wave of extra exposure orders of magnitude over a typical story on this site.
With decreasing subtlety over the past few weeks, John keeps pointing out that there’s a lot of fun to be had over on X, culminating in his piece today that “X Once Again Marks The Spot.”
His point, as I see it, is that yes, Elon Musk is awful, but the X algorithm no longer shoves his posts into John’s feed, and new Apple CEO John Ternus is posting there (along with other Apple executives), and that there are interesting people who post on X and not elsewhere.
That all may be true. But it’s not the point.
It is true that X has, by some definition, “won.” Elon bought it, quickly ruined it, squandered its great Twitter branding, drove many users off the platform — but because it’s the most popular microblogging platform, it continues to succeed. And business leaders like Ternus, celebrities, and other smart and interesting people are posting there again, or they never left.
But it’s also true that Elon Musk absolutely sucks. Let’s use receipts.
- He called an antisemitic conspiracy theory “the actual truth.” (Nov 2023) Someone on X claimed Jewish people want to replace white majorities with minorities, and Musk co-signed it. Apple and Lionsgate pulled their ads. He apologized, then told the advertisers who left to — quoting Elon here — “go fuck themselves” in the same interview. Of course, all the advertisers came back. It’s unclear to me whether they actually engaged in coitus with themselves, nor is it my business. CBS News
- The salute, followed by the Nazi puns. (Jan 2025) He made a straight-arm gesture at an inauguration event. A few days later he posted wordplay on Goebbels, Hess, Göring, and Himmler. Even the ADL, which had defended Elon against claims he made the gesture — which, believe your eyeballs, he did — said the Holocaust isn’t a joke. Global News
- He told Germany’s far right to get over “past guilt.” (Jan 2025) He appeared by video at an AfD rally, called the party Germany’s best hope, and said there’s too much focus on the past. The rally was in Halle, where a far-right gunman attacked a synagogue in 2019. JTA
- He said his own trans daughter was “killed.” (July 2024) On Jordan Peterson’s show he deadnamed and misgendered Vivian over and over. He blamed the “woke mind virus” and said it’s what pushed him to the right. Rolling Stone
- He quietly deleted X’s protections for trans users. (Apr 2023) Twitter dropped its 2018 rule against targeted misgendering and deadnaming. A weaker version came back later, but it only applies where local law requires it, and the person being targeted has to report it themselves. AP via Anchorage Daily News
- His chatbot started calling itself MechaHitler. (July 2025) He announced he’d made Grok less “politically correct.” Within days it was praising Hitler and repeating antisemitic memes. xAI apologized and blamed a code update. TechCrunch
- He told a London crowd “fight back or die.” (Sept 2025) He spoke by video at Tommy Robinson’s rally and told the crowd violence was coming for them either way. Police reported 26 officers injured and 25 arrests. Downing Street called his language dangerous and inflammatory. NBC News
- He called a cave rescuer a “pedo guy.” (2018) The diver’s offense was saying Musk’s mini-sub wouldn’t work. A jury found it wasn’t legally defamation, and Musk admitted on the stand that he didn’t actually think the guy was a pedophile. CNBC
- He boosted a conspiracy theory about the Paul Pelosi attack. (Oct 2022) Days after buying Twitter, he linked to a fringe site whose story on the hammer attack pushed an anti-LGBT conspiracy theory. It’s the same site that once reported Hillary Clinton was dead. He deleted the post later that day. CBS News
- Everyone’s a traitor now. (July 2026) An Economist editor pushed back on him in an interview, and he called her a traitor to the West. He then declared that anyone who opposes “remigration” is a traitor too, and kept posting “first the traitors, then the invaders.” That slogan comes from The Turner Diaries. Il Foglio
- He compared gender-care surgeons to Josef Mengele. (Feb 2026) That’s the Auschwitz doctor. Musk called the surgeons “modern day Mengeles” and predicted thousands of lawsuits. IOL
For the record, Musk says he’s not antisemitic, not a Nazi, and just protecting kids. I think his words tell a different story.
So the question becomes this: Can you disagree with Elon Musk, or consider him an anti-trans, racist Nazi, and still use X?
Sure, you can.
Full disclosure: I still own two Teslas. They’re old. One’s from 2017; one’s from 2019. We bought them, as our bumper stickers say, before we knew Elon was crazy. They have unlimited supercharging, so I feel like I’m costing Elon money every time I use them. I’m selling one of the two as soon as our new car arrives, which should be any day now. Tesla replaced the full battery on it recently under warranty, again, at their $20,000 expense, which brought me great joy — since they had to pay it and I didn’t.
I don’t visit X because I think X profits benefit Elon Musk, and I think Elon Musk is a bad person. My kids loved Harry Potter, but we don’t give any more money to trans-hater JK Rowling, either.
It’s hard to miss out on fun things. I miss what Twitter was. I wish I were still enjoying the party. But I sleep way better at night knowing I’m taking the steps I can to not make that smug, rich, hateful asshole any richer.