Social media brings out the worst in people. That’s why public figures have been known to start “burners,” accounts under an alias that allow them to defend themselves or scroll freely. It’s shady business, especially when someone like Elon Musk gets their hands on one.
Musk has a history with burners. In 2023, he was caught replying to a post from a different account that had no association with his main one, which has over 200 million followers. So, when people caught wind of “Adrian Dittmann,” a user who went out of their way to support Musk’s beliefs, they thought they had caught the Tesla founder red-handed again.
While Dittmann has already denied having anything to do with Musk, he’s been seen all over the Internet supporting the billionaire’s views on the H-1B visa, which allows companies like Tesla to bring foreign engineers and other workers to the United States. Plenty of politicians believe the visa process is being abused, such as Bernie Sanders, who recently posted his feelings on X.
“The main function of the H-1B visa program is not to hire ‘the best and the brightest,’ but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad,” he wrote. “The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make.”
Like Musk, Dittmann disagrees with the senator, and he’s been getting into debates on platforms like 4chan about the subject. However, in between all the strange posts, he got a bit sloppy and posted a screenshot of a Musk tweet from one of his own devices, which showed that his X account has admin privileges. Many took that as confirmation that Dittmann is indeed the owner of X, and that’s all the Internet needed to kick things up a notch.
“It’s another example of someone very rich mistaking that for being very smart,” one Reddit user wrote. “If he just paid someone to do it and stood back, everything would go a lot smoother. Pay someone to be your self-flattering alter ego, pay someone to run Twitter, pay someone to run Tesla, and just step away. I’m sure Tesla would’ve been better off post-Twitter acquisition were it not for the fact that he’d already had his mitts all over it and its image with the cyber truck.”
“It is just incredible.. How can one single person be so full of s**t,” added another. “He claims to be a busy CEO and at the same time posts every two minutes with his main or his alt on Twitter or 4chan.. What the hell. If I was this rich I would have better things to do..”
This wouldn’t be a good look for anyone, but it’s an even tougher situation for Musk, who gets involved in one controversy after another. Of course, he recently accused media outlets of bias following their coverage of the Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas. It’s only a couple of days into the new year, and it doesn’t seem like Musk will find himself out of the spotlight anytime soon.
Published: Jan 3, 2025 09:08 am