Three months ago, I had no idea who recording artist Grimes was, but after weeks of nonstop drama and intrigue, reports she’s been unfollowed on Twitter by her boyfriend Elon Musk have me shook.
Musk, who heads aerospace manufacturer SpaceX and electric car company/ever-shifting robotic death maze Tesla, has had a rough go of it for some time running now. In July, Musk got the party started by injecting himself into the drama around a high-profile Thai cave rescue by building an unnecessary “submarine,” then smearing one of the actual rescuers involved as a pedophile. Since then he’s been on a real tear, personally calling a Tesla short’s boss to berate him, sending Tesla into stock-tumbling meltdown mode and possible legal liability by tweeting about taking the company private, and weirding everyone out in a lengthy New York Times interview in which he alternated “between laughter and tears.” During that profile, sources told the paper board members had become concerned about Musk’s use of Ambien and unidentified “recreational drugs.”
Somewhere amid all this, Musk got sucked into a completely different controversy involving rapper Azealia Banks, who claimed Grimes ghosted on a planned collaboration at Musk’s estate to “[coddle] her boyfriend for being too stupid to know not to go on twitter while on acid.” (Musk denied the story, then later confirmed that he’d seen Banks on the property.) It’s gotten to the point where outlets like the New York Times have stopped using coy terms like “erratic” to describe Musk’s behaviour and openly asked whether he’s “crazy.”
Per a report in Business Insider, there might be yet more trouble in Muskland yet. The site writes that Grimes and Musk’s Instagram accounts apparently do not follow each other “despite publicly interacting on the social media site in june,” and Musk apparently clicked unfollow on Grimes’ Twitter account on Sunday:
Neither follows the other on Instagram despite publicly interacting on the social media site in June, and Musk unfollowed Grimes on Twitter early Sunday. As of Sunday afternoon, Grimes still follows Musk on Twitter.
It’s unclear whether the pair remains a couple. A spokesman for Musk declined to comment, and a representative for Grimes did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The astute among us may observe that spokespeople declining comment is rarely a sign of a healthy relationship. But by the same token, it did not seem like a particularly good sign when Grimes kept tweeting about how she’d personally investigated and disproved rumours that Musk was suppressing unionization efforts at Tesla facilities, either.
Anyhow, I suppose one could twist all this news into some kind of grand moral narrative about the making and unmaking of Herculean myth. Or you could wearily dredge up the ol’ compendium of business leadership anecdotes. Perhaps, like Arianna Huffington, you could use it as an opportunity to hawk your personal wellness brand. As for me? I’m just wondering if it’s possible Elon butt-unfollowed his girlfriend by accident and doesn’t want to admit he made a mistake. As the phrase goes, pobody’s nerfect!