Jelly Roll Leaves X, Plus Elon Musk's Bizarre $1 Million Giveaway Event

I don’t know what’s going to happen on Election Day, folks, but I will say this based on what we know from early voting patterns: the polls are not completely inaccurate. There’s not going to be a huge polling error that leans one way or another. It’s going to be a close race. It will likely come down to a few thousand votes in the swing states, and that’s both heartening and disheartening, regardless of the outcome. If Trump wins by a few thousand votes, we can take solace in the fact that 49.9% of voters supported the sane candidate. If Harris wins, we’ll still have to face the reality that 49.9% of voters wanted to return Donald Trump to office. We are a painfully divided country, and half of it is fine with being ruled by a grifter with authoritarian tendencies and signs of dementia, and that is true no matter who wins.

But hey! At least country musician Jelly Roll — a guy with a hell of a voice who battled addiction and spent time in prison before turning his life around — is done with Twitter. It says a lot about how terrible X has become when someone who spent time in prison is like, “This shit is too toxic for me.”

His actual words:

Needless to say, the responses from blue checks to that tweet reinforced the wisdom of his decision. Interestingly, it had nothing to do with the fact that Elon has also changed X’s policy to allow AI to train on everyone’s tweets. There is no opting out, and “all disputes related to the terms will be brought to the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas or state courts in Tarrant County, Texas,” which is where Elon Musk has a judge in his pocket.

Meanwhile, The Guardian has coverage of the first of Elon Musk’s legally dubious $1 million giveaway events, which seem to be full of folks already voting for Trump (Sunday’s winner was wearing a Trump/Vance T-shirt), so it’s unclear how much this will move the needle.

However, I can’t resist sharing the last few paragraphs from The Guardian piece by Oliver Laughland, which are *chef’s kiss*:

At one point, when he was asked a question about the future of nuclear power and began extolling the virtues of the sun, an attendee shouted: “Yes! Go the sun!” Later, a man attempted to get the crowd to spontaneously sing the national anthem, but no one joined in. Another attendee was removed by security after trying to shout a question out of line.

But others asked more conspiracy-themed questions, including whether Musk would consider financing the viewing of documentaries about child sex trafficking at the US border, or if he would consider creating a Hollywood studio to finance conservative film projects. He offered no firm commitments for any investment opportunities.

Some began to trickle out before the event had finished, and Musk wrapped up with empty seats visible throughout the auditorium. He exited the venue behind a privacy curtain, in a blacked-out SUV as the sun began to set over the Ohio River.

The motorcade did not stop as the Guardian asked from the roadside: “Why will you not take questions from journalists, too?”

Half the country, folks. Half the country.