The last direct Twitter exchange between Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey was very tense.
Tensions appeared between the two billionaires, who in the past had shown each other respect and admiration. One would have said that they were friends, or tech bros.
"Twitter went from real time to 1 minute delay," Dorsey on Feb. 8 mocked on the decentralized platform Nostr, after it was reported that Twitter was hit with an outage. "What's happening a minute from now."
The criticism followed another sharp exchange between the two a couple of months earlier. Musk then claimed that Twitter 1.0 did not implement any measures to ensure the safety of children on the platform.
"It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!" Musk said on Dec. 9.
"This is false," Dorsey immediately pushed back.
"I don’t know what happened in past year," Dorsey said. "But to say we didn’t take action for years isn’t true. You can make all my emails public to verify. Company took away my access to email or I would."
'Too Many Social Media Companies?': Musk
Last month Dorsey spoke again critically of Musk, who controls the platform Dorsey co-founded. As a reminder, Dorsey remains a minority shareholder of Twitter 2.0,because he rolled in his $2 billion stake when Musk acquired the social network last October for $44 billion.
Dorsey in April was asked by users of Bluesky, one of the new social networks seen as alternatives to Twitter, whether he thought Musk was the right leader for Twitter. "No" was his answer.
"Nor do I think he acted right after realizing his timing was bad," Dorsey said. "Nor do I think the board should have forced the sale. It all went south."
After a long absence, Dorsey, who runs Block, (SQ) the payment-services company formerly known as Square, has just reappeared on Twitter. In recent days he has written a series of enigmatic tweets. These messages did not go unnoticed, since Musk reacted to each one of them.
The message that got the most attention was one from May 26 in which Dorsey indicated that "America has a problem."
"Too many social media companies?" Musk suggested.
Dorsey did not respond.
It is unclear whether Dorsey was serious or was just referring to the title of a Beyonce song from her "Renaissance" album. The pop star, who is currently touring Europe, recently released a remix of the song, featuring Kendrick Lamar. The rapper is one of Dorsey's favorite artists, based on the billionaire's tweeting history.
"Kendrick," he posted last June.
Contrary to what the title suggests, the song is not political. The song is about the effect Beyonce had on her lover. In the remix, Lamar added references to artificial intelligence.
A Warning About Social-Media Use
Musk's suggestion that America's problem is too much social media is also interesting. Does he mean this, or is his remark a subtle criticism of Dorsey, who is a major force behind the rise of two decentralized social networks considered direct alternatives to Twitter?
Dorsey started backing Bluesky in 2019 while he was still Twitter's CEO. He has also been promoting Nostr, another decentralized platform of which he is a frequent user. In 2022, he donated 14 bitcoin -- valued at about $245,000 at the time - to Nostr to help fund the open-source protocol’s development.
Decentralized social media allow users to own and control their data, as well as to communicate and share information directly with other users. There is no centralized entity at these platforms, unlike mainstream social platforms.
In 2021, a bipartisan group of lawmakers concluded that social-media use could lead to severe mental health problems, including sleep disorders, depression, and suicide.
Tech companies, experts say, use artificial intelligence to determine people’s interests and desires, and they then feed the users content that fulfills those desires.
This can be particularly problematic for adolescents, who may lack the self-discipline and maturity needed to stop watching the content.
Researchers have even suggested that some people experience addiction to social media in ways that are similar to addiction to drugs and other substances.
Several states are considering bills to address social-media addiction. The U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, who is the country’s top public health official, recently warned against the use of social media by children and adolescents. He called it an "urgent public health issue” and urged policymakers, parents, tech companies and schools to act.
Another exchange between Dorsey and Musk about who controls people's minds is also gripping.
"Whoever controls the media controls the mind," the Dorsey tweeted on May 27.
Musk replied with three emojis, which suggest he is considering what his peer just said.
"🧠🕹️🤔"
