Elon Musk Argues With X's Community Notes Over A Windows Workaround

Elon Musk, of SpaceX, brain-computer interface, and Tesla fame, is struggling with a fresh Windows 11 install on a new laptop per recent postings on X, formerly Twitter. Musk is getting swiftly ratio’d by nerds on his social media platform using the community notes feature, however, explaining that he is wrong about Windows installation requiring a Microsoft account. Musk is now arguing with his community notes, and who knows what might happen next.

Over the past weekend, Elon Musk posted to X about getting a new PC laptop, noting that “it won’t let me use it unless I create a Microsoft account, which also means giving their AI access to my computer!” Setting aside that isn’t a very nuanced take on AI and Microsoft for someone with a rather sizeable audience and following, Musk went on to mention that “There used to be an option to skip signing into or creating a Microsoft account,” and whether anyone else had noticed this change.

Community Notes is failing here. This option no longer exists. pic.twitter.com/b04hBivqXo

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 25, 2024

Of course, it is still possible to skip signing in or setting up a Microsoft account, which is what a community note on Elon’s post explained. However, the link that was posted seemingly did not adequately explain the solution or was no longer accurate, to which Musk retorted, “Community Notes is failing here. This option no longer exists.” This new post then had a fresh community note appear, stating, “Yes it is. However, it's not possible in the same, simple way it used to be on Windows 10 but rather requires some tricky workarounds that the average Andy might not be aware of.” Besides the link posted in the community note, we have covered several ways of bypassing the Windows online setup in the past.

All told, it is quite amusing to see this back-and-forth occur between the owner of X and some random folks who can post community notes. However, we also hope that Musk will not take offense to the community notes trying to help out, despite the snark, and do something rash like turn off community notes. We will have to see what happens, and in the meantime, if you need to install Windows and don’t want to link your Microsoft account, it is a fairly simple process to skip using a Microsoft account in Windows with our rundown.