As the #DeleteFacebook campaign ramps up, even SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is weighing in. The billionaire entrepreneur doesn’t have a Facebook account to delete. He’s more of an Instagram user, which is owned by Facebook.
But on Friday, Musk said he would delete the official Facebook pages for SpaceX and Tesla. The SpaceX page was deleted soon after his comments on Twitter.
The promise all started during an exchange on Twitter when Musk referenced an article by The Verge about Sonos pulling ads off of Facebook for a week. Musk provided a link to the story and a snarky comment, ‘Wow, a whole week. Risky …”
Wow, a whole week. Risky …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
Musk’s millions of followers on Twitter quickly jumped on the comment—a standard event these days. One of the commentators was Brian Action, the co-founder of messaging service WhatsApp, which Facebook now owns. Action tweeted to Musk “It is time. #deletefacebook.”The hashtag he used has been trending since a scandal broke last weekend that Cambridge Analytica, a right-leaning political consultancy, acquired and misused the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users.
Https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/976231995846963201
Musk responded with a pithy “What is Facebook?” But in later exchanges, he committed to deleting the SpaceX and Tesla pages on Facebook.
I didn’t realize there was one. Will do.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
Definitely. Looks lame anyway.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
Musk, who occasionally posts photos and videos on Instagram, admitted that Facebook’s influence was creeping into the photo-sharing site.
Musk has trolled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg before—and vice versa—about their views on the dangers of artificial intelligence.