Hot off his recent $44 billion buyout of Twitter, billionaire Elon Musk joked he would next purchase the Coca-Cola Company to "put cocaine back in."
It might surprise many readers to know Coca-Cola did in fact at one time use cocaine to make the ubiquitous carbonated soft drink.
When first launched, Coca-Cola's two key ingredients were cocaine and caffeine. The cocaine was derived from the coca leaf and the caffeine from kola nut, which was also spelled "cola nut" at the time, leading to the name Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola was colloquially referred to as "dope" in certain parts of the United States long after the drink ceased to contain significant amounts of the highly addictive drug,
Musk, perhaps feeling on top of the world after purchasing one of the most influential social media networks in the world, seemed to think the tweet was funny.
The tweet appeared to take aim at critics who have expressed their reservations about the Twitter buyout, arguing that having one person have so much centralized power over political discourse online poses a significant threat to democracy.
But as it turns out, many on the social media network were not at all amused and they made their disdain for Musk known.
Musk's buyout has been largely cheered by conservatives even as it received derision from Democrats and civil rights groups.
Rumors of a buyout began to circulate earlier this month after Musk disclosed a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter made him the company's largest shareholder. Prominent conservatives appeared emboldened by the news, particularly because Musk had questioned Twitter's content moderation rules in the days before his disclosure.
Many have expressed hope that he might reinstate former President Donald Trump's Twitter account, which was banned following the events of January 6 2021, the day a mob of Trump's supporters attacked the nation's seat of government on the false premise that the 2020 general election had been stolen.
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