Elon Musk retweets undercover video where Twitter executive allegedly mocks him as ‘special needs’
Elon Musk has shared an undercover video in which a Twitter executive allegedly made disparaging remarks about the Tesla boss for having Asperger’s Syndrome.
Alex Martinez, a lead client partner at the social media company Mr Musk is on the verge of buying for $44bn, was secretly recorded by an undercover reporter for Project Veritas.
In the video, Mr Martinez is recorded saying that the billionaire entrepreneur is “literally special needs” and called him “a loony tune”, according to the right-wing activist group.
Mr Musk did not seem impressed at the video, tweeting, “Twitter exec trashing free speech & mocking people with Asperger’s…”
The world’s richest person also pinned the tweet to his Twitter page and separately also tweeted a frown emoji in response to the video.
The video of Mr Martinez came a day after Project Veritas released another video in which Twitter senior engineer Siru Murugesan, said that Twitter “does not believe in free speech.”
Twitter exec trashing free speech & mocking people with Asperger’s …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 18, 2022
In the video the Twitter employee also stated that “capitalist” Mr Musk may clash with Twitter employees he described as “socialist” and “commie as f***.”
In the wake of the first video, Twitter released a memo to staff, in which it warned of sting operations from groups like Project Veritas.
“Groups like Project Veritas are active right now,” Twitter staff were told by the company’s security team.
“These groups use social engineering tactics to get close to employees and obtain videos and recordings of employees discussing internal company matters and often selectively edit those recordings to misrepresent conversations to further their own political or ideological agendas.
“Given the interest in Twitter at the moment, we expect for this targeting to continue and possibly increase, and it’s more important than ever that we remain vigilant.
“Do not disclose confidential, proprietary information, or discuss internal conversations, policies or products outside of the office.”
Mr Musk had a $54.20 per share cash offer accepted by the Twitter board last month, which still has to be ratified by the company’s shareholders.
He has since said that the deal is “temporarily on hold” and the acquisition “cannot move forward” until he gets more information from the platform about the number of fake and spam accounts.
The company has said that less than five per cent of accounts are span, while Mr Musk says the number is 20 per cent.
Twitter told The Independent that it had no comment on the video.
