Elon Musk Tweets Quiz
Fifteen documented posts by the most consequential individual account in the history of the platform, including two that moved share prices and one that ended in a settlement with a securities regulator.
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The account that changed what a tweet could cost
Most of the tweets in the wider Who Tweeted deck are cultural artefacts: jokes, announcements, moments that defined an era of the internet. This set is different, because several of these posts had direct, measurable financial consequences, and one of them produced a legal settlement. That combination is genuinely rare, and it is why this account gets its own set.
“Funding secured”, August 2018. A post stating that Musk was considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share, and that funding was secured, sent the stock sharply higher and led the US Securities and Exchange Commission to charge him with securities fraud. The matter was settled: Musk stepped down as chairman of Tesla’s board and he and the company each paid a $20 million penalty, and Tesla agreed to pre-approval procedures for certain of his communications. It remains the clearest case on record of a single social media post triggering a regulatory action against a chief executive.
The second market-moving post
In May 2020 Musk posted that Tesla's own share price was too high in his opinion. The stock fell sharply the same day, wiping billions from the company's market value and from his personal holdings. The two posts together, the 2018 one and the 2020 one, are usually cited as the pair that established a genuinely novel problem in corporate governance: what a company is supposed to do when its chief executive is also its most-read commentator, and the two roles disagree.
The acquisition, in four posts
| Date | What was happening |
|---|---|
| April 5, 2022 | Announced he was joining the Twitter board, a position he did not ultimately take up |
| April 14, 2022 | Proposed taking Twitter private at $54.20 a share |
| October 26, 2022 | Arrived at Twitter headquarters carrying a sink, posted as a pun |
| October 28, 2022 | Marked the completion of the acquisition |
Four posts spanning roughly seven months tell the whole story of one of the largest technology acquisitions ever completed, which is itself a comment on how the platform was used during it. The negotiation, the reversal, the litigation and the closing were all narrated in public on the service being bought.
The recurring number
Two separate proposals in this set are priced at figures ending in the same two digits: the 2018 Tesla proposal at $420 a share and the 2022 Twitter offer at $54.20. Musk has publicly acknowledged the reference in the first case. It is a small detail, but for quiz purposes it is a reliable tell, because no other executive in the deck prices transactions as a joke.
The other side of the account
Not everything here is financial. The set includes a 2021 exchange with the World Food Programme, in which Musk said he would sell Tesla stock and donate if the agency could publish exactly how six billion dollars would solve world hunger; a pledge of one hundred million dollars for carbon capture technology; a post about Dogecoin; an early reaction to ChatGPT; and a comment marking the first fully private astronaut mission launched by SpaceX. Together they show why the account is difficult to imitate: the range runs from securities announcements to deliberate nonsense inside the same week.
How the questions work
Every tweet in the Who Tweeted deck is a real, documented post, with the date and the engagement figures shown alongside it. We do not write plausible tweets and attribute them, which is a rule we adopted after finding fabricated entries in an early version of this dataset and removing them. The sourcing standard is set out in how we research and verify every question, and every correction we have made is listed on the release notes page.
Frequently asked questions
What was the "funding secured" tweet?
An August 2018 post saying Musk was considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share with funding secured. The SEC charged him with securities fraud; the matter settled with Musk stepping down as Tesla chairman and Musk and Tesla each paying a $20 million penalty.
Which Musk tweet made Tesla stock fall?
A May 2020 post saying Tesla’s share price was too high in his opinion. The stock dropped sharply the same day, reducing the company’s market value by billions.
Are these real tweets?
Yes. Every entry in Who Tweeted is a real, documented post shown with its date and engagement figures. Fabricated entries found in an early version of the dataset were removed and the correction is public.
How many Musk tweets are in the deck?
Fifteen, the largest number for any single account. A round shows ten of them, reshuffled each time you play.
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