Elon Musk reportedly suffered a mental breakdown after facing angry boos at Dave Chappelle’s San Francisco show in December 2022, which added to the billionaire’s fears that his reputation as a tech visionary had been damaged by his seemingly chaotic moves in buying and running Twitter, the once iconic social media platform he rebranded as X.
Musk’s mental breakdown is being reported by Ben Mezrich, the author of a new book, “Breaking Twitter,” which covers the billionaire’s haphazard acquisition of X, Insider reported.
“He got to a point where he locked himself in his office, was so upset that the Twitter employees were considering calling a wellness check by the San Francisco police because they thought he was going to self-harm himself,” Mezrich said in an interview Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box, Insider said.
“I think he truly cares about his reputation, and he was shocked,” Mezrich said.
Mezrich cited several incidents that led to Musk’s downward “spiral.” The first was the Chappelle show, which took place about two months after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion.
Chappelle brought the Tesla and SpaceX mogul onstage as his surprise guest at the end of a set at San Francisco’s Chase Center. The crowd initially erupted into a mixture of cheers and boos at the sight of Twitter’s polarizing new CEO. But as the shock of Musk’s appearance wore off, the boos began to win out and grew increasingly angry, according to footage of the set and some people in the audience.
The footage showed the booing getting louder as Musk wandered around onstage with a microphone in hand. Musk tried to wave and paced some more, evidently unsure about how to respond. Chappelle tried to salvage the moment by cracking some jokes: “It sounds like some of the people you fired are in the audience.”
People on social media estimated that the vast majority of people in the 18,000-capacity stadium booed during Musk’s appearance, according to a report.
Mezrich said on CNBC that Musk was “shocked” by the audience’s reaction, noting, “This never happened to Elon before, and this spiral started.”
Another destabilizing event, Mezrich said, was an incident that also took place in December 2022. This involved a confrontation between a member of Musk’s security team, who was driving his 2-year-old son in Los Angeles, and a “crazy stalker,” Musk said. A man wearing a black hood and mask allegedly tailed a car carrying Musk’s son, X Æ A-Xii. and “climbed” atop the vehicle in Los Angeles.
Police responded to the incident but made no arrests and found no way to verify Musk’s claims that the confrontation was tied to a Twitter account that tracked his private jet, the Washington Post reported. The incident nonetheless triggered a major rewrite of X’s rules and the suspensions of a half dozen journalists’ accounts, which were condemned by free-speech advocates, the Washington Post. It also underscored how Musk’s personal concerns can influence his operations of a platform used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, the Washington Post also said.
Mezrich said that “the Elon before Twitter and the Elon after Twitter are two different Elons.” He also said, “Elon didn’t just break Twitter, Twitter broke Elon Musk.”
In the year after Musk purchased Twitter, the company’s value dropped from $44 billion to $19 billion, the New York Times reported late last month. He overhauled the company by vastly reducing its staff. More than 80 percent of its 7,500 employees either quit or were laid off. He also changed the service’s verification process, as well as content-moderation rules. By the summer, advertising the company’s main source of revenue, was down in the United States by almost 60%.
Musk has historically been concerned with his popularity, especially on the platform he owns, Insider reported. Back in February, the billionaire reportedly asked engineers to investigate why his tweets were getting fewer views. He reportedly fired the engineer who showed him that his popularity was declining.
The Wall Street Journal reported in June that Musk allegedly microdoses ketamine to treat depression, Page Six said. In 2017, Musk — who has Asperger’s syndrome — opened up about his mental health, saying that he may also suffer from bipolar disorder.
“The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress. Don’t think people want to hear about the last two,” he said at the time, Page Six reported.