In a move that will come as a shock to no one, Elon Musk has appeared to make a drastic U-turn by telling Americans who to vote for in the upcoming midterm elections. In what will be a defining moment in Joe Biden's presidency, and indeed American history, voters will be heading to the polls today to decide who sits in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The Democrats, who currently hold both chambers of Congress where nationwide laws are made, are expected to lose the House and face a very tight fight for the Senate. Both parties have brought out the big guns, with former President Barack Obama joining President Biden at a rally in key swing state Pennyslvania, which is also where former President Donald Trump has been campainging for the Republicans.
The elections, which are called the midterms because that happen in the middle of a President's four-year term, are said to be "on a knife edge", so every little bit counts.
Therefore, some people are not happy that Musk has come out with a very strong political stance just before Americans go to vote.
"To independent-minded voters: Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic," Musk tweeted.
Revealing that he has been a Democrat voter in the past, Musk explained that he changed his mind this year.
"To be clear, my historical party affiliation has been independent, with an actual voting history of entirely Democrat until this year," he added.
"And I'm open to the idea of voting Democrat again in the future."
This call to action has not gone down well with many people, with some accusing the Tesla boss of being a 'hypocrite'.
In April this year, before he bought Twitter, Musk claimed that the social media platform should be "politically neutral".
"For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally," he wrote.
The billionaire, who has been rubbing elbows with prominent conservatives, has been called put for this drastic U-turn in opinion.
Kanishka Raj Singh, a Reuters journalist, replied: "Hi @elonmusk, in this tweet in April, you said Twitter should be politically neutral
"How would you, as the head of Twitter, justify recommending which party people should vote for after you advocated for political neutrality for the platform?"
Another person claimed: "This is a example of a tweet that undermines your ability to prevent twitter from becoming an $8 per month subscription to the Elon Musk fan club."
To which he replied: "Like most people in America, I agree with some of the Democrat and some of the Republican policies, but not all. However, if executive and legislative branches are dominated by *one* party, then we lose balance of power."
Musk looks set to make sweeping changes to Twitter, having claimed that he bought the platform to "help humanity" rather than for any financial gain.
"I didn't do it because it would be easy. I didn't do it to make money. I did it to try and help humanity, recognising that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility," he tweeted.
The rollout of Twitter's new blue subscription, which will charge people to be verified on the site, has caused a lot of controversy.
Twitter Blue, the company's subscription service that offers exclusive features like bookmark folders and ad-free articles for $4.99 a month, already exists but Musk once dubbed it "an insane piece of s***".
Musk now wants everyone to pay to get a blue ticks, but concerns have been raised that the new system could be used to spread information by parody accounts.
Although it seems Musk's Twitter have realised there could be serious issues with people impersonating others during the midterm elections, so the rollout of the new blue tick system has been paused.
Yoel Roth, the social media firm's head of safety and integrity, has confirmed the Twitter Blue update is being deferred until after voting has closed.
He tweeted: "We’re particularly focused on the risks of impersonation of public officials in the context of the US 2022 midterm elections, and have made the decision not to launch Verification for Twitter Blue until after Election Day."
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