Opinion: Here’s a simple way Elon Musk could make Twitter better

Last month, Twitter user Qasim Rashid tweeted the following:

Oil & Avg Gas $ June 2008:
•Oil: $181.58/barrel
•Gas: $4.10/gallon

Oil & Avg Gas $ Mar 2022:
•Oil: $99.76/barrel
•Gas: $4.32/gallon

If you're blaming anyone but greedy oil companies for their price gouging—you've bought into propaganda that hurts you more than anyone else.

— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) March 14, 2022

These numbers are not accurate. The average price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil in June 2008 was $134, not $181.58. In March 2022, it was $108, not $99.76. Gas prices were $4.05 in June 2008 and $4.22 in March 2022. So the markup on gasoline has increased modestly since 2008, but not nearly as much as this tweet suggests.

Even so, Rashid’s tweet has racked up 18,000 retweets. As of publication time, it’s still on Twitter.

Tweets like this one are on my mind as I think about Twitter’s Monday announcement that it had accepted a deal for Elon Musk to buy Twitter for $44 billion.

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