Where there’s smoke, there’s Elon

The eleventy-dimensional chess game that Billionaire Elon Musk is playing with Twitter continues to pay off handsomely:

DETROIT — General Motors is suspending its advertising on Twitter following Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform, the company told CNBC on Friday.

The Detroit automaker, a rival to Musk-led electric vehicle maker Tesla, said it is “pausing” advertising as it evaluates Twitter’s new direction. It will continue to use the platform to interact with customers but not pay for advertising, GM added.

“We are engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership. As is normal course of business with a significant change in a media platform, we have temporarily paused our paid advertising. Our customer care interactions on Twitter will continue,” the company said in an emailed statement.

As we all know, servicing Musk’s Twitter debt will cost about $1B Ameros annually and so those advertising bucks are important to him. But what about the other car manufacturers?

A spokesperson for Ford Motor, another Tesla rival, told CNBC that the automaker is not currently advertising on Twitter, and had not been doing so prior to Elon Musk’s take-private deal. They added, “We will continue to evaluate the direction of the platform under the new ownership.”

And then there’s other manufacturers…

Other auto companies, including Stellantis and Alphabet-owned Waymo, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether they plan to suspend advertising or discontinue using the social media platform in wake of Musk’s $44 billion buyout of Twitter.

Electric truck maker Nikola said it had no plans to change anything regarding the platform. Rivian declined to comment.

Now, lest you begin to fear for poor Elon, Team Coup is coming to the rescue of the Free Speech Absolutist Billionaire:

Totally cool that likely 2024 Goat Rodeo contender and human Q-Tip Tom Cotton would forget that Corporations are people, my friends. And nothing, Nothing, NOTHING says free speech like threatening it.