Elon Musk Fires Back At ‘Extreme Antibody Reaction’ Over Twitter Takeover: ‘Says It All’

Jackson RichmanApr 26th, 2022, 3:32 pm
 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk fired back on Tuesday at critics of his pending takeover of Twitter.

“The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all,” tweeted Musk.

Musk later clarified, “By ‘free speech’, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.”

Twitter announced on Monday it has reached an agreement for Musk to acquire the social media platform for almost $44 billion.

Following the news, Twitter erupted with all kinds of extreme reactions, with many from the left and the media very much on the meltdown end of the spectrum.

Many expressed deep concerns about the future of the platform, or speech itself, the wake of the news, including CNN contributor John Dean and Berkeley professor and pundit Robert Reich.

Even the ACLU weighed in.

American Civil Liberties Union executive director Anthony Romero slammed Musk.

While Elon Musk is an ACLU card-carrying member and one of our most significant supporters, there’s a lot of danger having so much power in the hands of any one individual. In today’s world, a small handful of private tech companies — including Twitter — play a profound and unique role in enabling our right to express ourselves online.

Social media is a critical tool used to share ideas, express opinions, and consume information that has real-life impacts in discourse in the offline world. We should be worried about any powerful central actor, whether it’s a government or any wealthy individual — even if it’s an ACLU member — having so much control over the boundaries of our political speech online.

Musk has stated his intention to take Twitter private, to make its algorithms public, and has made several comments about the platform being necessary to Democracy and freedom of speech.

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