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Elon Musk Suzanne Cordeiro/Special to American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK

Twitter chooses Woj over Shams in secret VIP list

By Sean Keane | Last updated 3/28/23

In the eternal battle between NBA newsbreakers, Elon Musk is Team Woj.

The website platformer reported that Twitter has been secretly boosting 35 "VIP" Twitter accounts. Twitter monitors those accounts and "offers increased visibility" alongside Musk's own tweets.

There’s a secret list of Twitter VIPs whose accounts the company has been boosting over everyone else’s. And @ZoeSchiffer got it.

Congrats to Ben Shapiro, AOC, and … LeBron?

Subscribe to read: https://t.co/wA70QlwxFT
— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) March 28, 2023

There's two NBA figures on the list: LeBron James, and ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. Notably absent is Shams Charania, Woj's rival when it comes to breaking free agency news, spoiling NBA draft picks and disseminating information from agents.

Perhaps Elon Musk is old school when it comes to NBA rumors. Maybe he's nostalgic for 2016, when Wojnarowski was still at Yahoo and Musk wasn't even worth $11 billion. We like to imagine Musk overseeing a SpaceX launch while frantically refreshing Twitter to find out if Dwight Howard was really leaving the Rockets for the Hawks.

It's also interesting that Musk is helping the spread of disinformation on Twitter by promoting the tweets of serial fabricator LeBron James. Over the years, James has shared dubious claims like:

He was listening to Migos a year before they ever released a mixtape.
He was going to do the dunk contest in 2010.
He'd watched "The Godfather" films.
He dreamt about playing an NCAA final against Michael Jordan but woke up before he saw who won.

Just woke up from having a dream that MJ and I was shooting the sh*+ back and forth at the Men's National Championship game between North Carolina/Duke! Great vibes and EPIC CLASSIC GAME! It was a tie game/94-94/5 secs left/NC with the ball. My ass would wake up to use the
— LeBron James (@KingJames) March 5, 2023

The other breaking news? Mark Cuban paid for Twitter Blue, the service that's made Twitter only $11 million since its launch.

And on the flip side I'm losing ~500-1k users a day. I bought a blue check mark just to see if it mattered. If there was the claimed priority given to paid checks. Nope. Same thing. But I have to say the 2800 characters does have value.
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 28, 2023

Just like signing Chandler Parsons, or trading for Kristaps Porzingis and giving him a max extension, or losing $500K on a smartphone breathalyzer, it's another Mark Cuban investment that hasn't paid off. But it's not a surprise that Cuban values the 2,800 characters. It gives him more room to complain about officiating.

For those wondering about the play with 1:54 to go on the 3rd, let me explain what happened. The ref called Mavs ball . The announcer announced it. Then there was a timeout . During the time out the official changed the call and never told us. Then when they saw us line up as…
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 23, 2023

If Musk really wants to win Cuban back, he needs to offer him 28,000 characters and special placement in Adam Silver's Twitter feed.

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