If there's one thing you can give Elon Musk credit for as the CEO of Twitter, it's that he uses the service far more than any of its leaders to come before. Historically, a frequent criticism about Twitter leadership — including its C-suite executives and board members — was that they didn't tweet very often.
And most CEOs active on Twitter largely use the platform to distribute sterile, PR-crafted statements regarding company news.
Musk is much more freewheeling on the social network, which has made him likeable to some but has also had disastrous results. Musk is fighting a legal battle over a tweet he sent in 2018 in which he claimed to have secured funding to take one of his companies, Tesla, private at a price of $420 a share. Plaintiffs say they lost money after buying stock on the announcement before word came out that the deal was still in discussion and not finalized.
Advertisers have also been concerned about their brands appearing on the platform as Musk loosens up content moderation, with fourth-quarter revenue down 35%, The Information reported.
In using Twitter, Musk is unusual among major leaders in another way: He often tweets in response to regular users who don't have very many followers.
Insider took samplings of Musk's replies between early 2020 and the start of 2023 and searched them for words and phrases that appeared often. Some patterns emerged in the ways in which Musk replied to others. Below are five common themes found in his replies.