Anonymous say video message to Elon Musk over Bitcoin meddling isn’t theirs
Guerrilla hacking group Anonymous has denied it was behind a public warning to Elon Musk over his Bitcoin tweets.
A video claiming to be from Anonymous said it would soon be targeting Tesla in response to his ‘cavalier’ approach to cryptocurrency.
The group – synonymous with the Occupy Wall Street movement – has, in the past, hacked PayPal and the Church of Scientology. Yesterday, it appeared that Elon Musk would be next on its hit list.
However, in a fresh twist to the ongoing saga, Anonymous last night denied any involvement in the warning, instead pointing the finger at a breakaway doppelganger organisation.
In a video message, a masked representative of the copycat group claims Musk has too much power and wantonly wields control over market prices with his social media influence.
The video threat comes in the wake of another price plunge as a direct result of a ‘break-up’ meme tweeted by the South African entrepreneur on Thursday, which was an obvious reference to Tesla parting ways with Bitcoin.
The electric car manufacturer had announced months ago that it would accept Bitcoin as payment, before withdrawing the idea soon after, with Musk personally taking to Twitter to cite the amount of energy consumed in the mining process as the reason behind the U-turn.
READ MORE: Bitcoin investors growing weary of Elon Musk’s tiresome tweets
However, it seems Musk’s persistent sniping at Bitcoin on the back of the payment climbdown has been the final straw for some activists.
Yesterday, a the group purporting to be Anonymous posted a video aimed directly at Musk, claiming the billionaire’s ‘temper tantrums’ were mocking hard-working people who had invested in Bitcoin.
Elon Musk has yet to publicly respond to the video, although given his previous form it is highly likely that he will take the bait.
Full text of the video message to Elon Musk…
Greetings citizens of the world,
This is a message from Anonymous, for Elon Musk.
For the past several years you have enjoyed one of the most favourable reputations of anyone in the billionaire class because you have tapped into the desire that many of us have to life in a world with electric cars and space exploration, but recently your carefully created public image is being exposed and people are beginning to see you as nothing more than another narcissistic rich dude who is desperate for attention.
It appears that your quest to save the world is more rooted in a superiority and saviour complex than it is in actual concern for humanity. This has been obvious to your employees for a long time who have faced intolerable conditions under your command for years.
It is also obvious to the young children working in your overseas lithium mines which are destroying the local environment as well. You have been open about your willingness to stage coups in order to install dictators in places where your toxic products are being mined. You have even prematurely crowned yourself ‘Emperor of Mars,’ a place where you will be sending people to die.
Your fanboys overlook these issues because they are focused on the potential good that your projects can bring to the world but you are not the only show in town and your competition is growing more intense with each passing day.
There are plenty of other companies working on space exploration and electric vehicles you are just the only CEO who has gained a cult following through s***-posting and trolling the world on social media. In fact, many people are not learning that the vast majority of Tesla’s income doesn’t come from selling cars, it comes from government subsidies – selling carbon tax credits for your innovation with clean energy
This technically isn’t your innovation though because you aren’t actually the founder of Tesla. You simply purchased the company from two people much more intelligent than you are – Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning
Tesla has also made more money holding Bitcoin for a few months than they did in years of selling cars.
It is also more than likely that this Bitcoin was purchased with money from these government subsidies.
It is now widely believed you have been forced to denounce your company’s involvement with Bitcoin in order to keep that green government money flowing into Tesla’s coffers.
The energy use argument about proof-of-work mining is a very nuanced conversation that requires a fairly complex understanding of how power grids work and how excess energy is wasted by power companies and sought out by crypto miners.
This is a conversation that you have been having for over a year and were intimately aware of but as soon as your main source of income was threatened as your pretended to be clueless in an attempt to play both sides of the fence
Then, your move to create a Bitcoin miner council was rightly seen as an attempt to centralise the industry and take it under your control.
Reading the comments on your Twitter posts, it seems that the games you have played with the crypto markets have destroyed lives.
Millions of retail investors were really counting on their crypto gains to improve their lives. This is something that you will never understand because you were born into the stolen wealth of a South African apartheid emerald mine and have no clue what struggle is like for most of the working people in the world.
Of course, they took the risk upon themselves when they invested, and everyone knows to be prepared for volatility in crypto, but your Tweets this week show a clear disregard for the average working person.
As hardworking people have their dreams liquidated over your public temper tantrums, you continue to mock them with memes from one of your million-dollar mansions.
You may think you are the smartest person in the room, but now you have met your match. We are Anonymous! We are legion. Expect us.