Former Obama aide admits Twitter ‘widely perceived as a Democratic brand’ before Musk took over

Former Obama adviser Steven Rattner said Wednesday that Twitter was “widely perceived as a Democratic brand” before Elon Musk took over the social media site. 

Rattner broke down Musk’s companies, Tesla vs. Twitter, and his “polarizing brand” with “Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist. The economic analyst said that Tesla has become a politicized brand over the course of the year as Democratic favorability of Musk has plummeted. 

“I put to Twitter here as a point of comparison. It’s just kind of interesting in itself. And that Twitter was pretty widely perceived as a Democratic brand, favored by Democrats, but that’s also closed and now it is roughly even on Twitter between Republican and Democratic views of Twitter, but Tesla, the jaws have opened. That’s not good for the company,” Rattner said. 

Geist also asked Rattner what Musk might be “up to” with Twitter. 

Steve Rattner joins the hosts of “Morning Joe” on Wednesday. 
(Screenshot/MSNBC/MorningJoe)

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“I can’t explain what he’s up to with Twitter. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. It feels like he was intrigued with buying Twitter, he got himself in a contract that was so irrevocable that when he got inside Twitter and found out the business wasn’t as good as he thought it was, he couldn’t really back out of it, he had to go ahead and close the deal but his behavior since then is kind of inexplicable to me. Inexplicable,” he said.  

Musk, through several independent journalists, has dropped multiple installments of the “Twitter files.” 

The first installment was posted by Substack writer Matt Taibbi and revealed what led to Twitter’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020. 

Other installments have provided insight into former president Donald Trump’s ban from the site as well. 

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 02: Elon Musk attends The 2022 Met Gala Celebrating “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 02, 2022 in New York City.
( (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue))

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Rattner and Geist also discussed Tesla’s financial position in the wake of Musk’s takeover of the social media platform. The “Morning Joe” host said that “dabbling into politics on Twitter” has affected the price of the Tesla stock.

“The auto companies as a whole are not down nearly as much and they’re actually up a bit since the 27th of October, when Elon bought Twitter. Tesla’s down 29% just in those couple months, and the S&P is up, Ford up, GM up in that period of time as well. He’s had, he’s had a rough time. Back to the politicization of this thing. There’s an interesting irony which is that Tesla got, Elon got, a huge loan from, under the Obama Administration to build this factory. Mitt Romney in 2012 called Tesla a loser company and now it’s all sort of flipped around,” he said. 

This April 26, 2017, file photo shows the Twitter app icon on a mobile phone in Philadelphia. 
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

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Musk, according to Forbes’ real time billionaires list, was in the number 2 spot as of Tuesday afternoon and no longer the richest person in the world.