Elon Musk’s Silly ‘Elon Tusk’ Twitter Profile Kicked Off a Ton of Rumors About Tesla

We now know the news behind Elon Musk’s cryptic tweets. Some of them, at least.

But before Thursday’s announcements that Tesla Inc. was finally prepared to deliver a Model 3 priced for the mass market, that ordering was moving to online only, and that the company probably won’t be profitable in the first quarter, online sleuths were taking their best guesses as to what exactly the unpredictable billionaire had in store.

Some of the most entertaining guesses hinged on the chief executive officer changing his name on Twitter to “Elon Tusk,” with an accompanying elephant emoji.

Reddit users speculated the switch may have been alluding to a frequent refrain from another famous billionaire: Warren Buffett. The Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO wrote in his annual letter to investors last week that he continued to seek an “ elephant-sized acquisition.” Another theory on Twitter was that Musk would announce a factory in India.

It turns out the name change was meaningless. When asked about the new nom de plume on a call with reporters Thursday, Musk responded: “I was just playing the fool on Twitter.”