Musk: Not an Absolutist About Free Speech

…at least not when it’s about him.

In his thus far successful pell-mell rush to set fire to his $44 billion investment, Musk has been tireless in his efforts to repel advisers, and users. The third vital prong of his multi-billion arson effort has been firing or alienating Twitter’s employees.

Self-proclaimed self-made man Musk likes to portray himself as a free speech absolutist. He certainly is fond of allowing neo-Nazis to express themselves. He recently reinstated the account of a neo-Nazi who advocates, among other thing, that someone should “ethnically cleanse White nations of non-Whites and establish an authoritarian government” and also thoughtfully observed that “many people also believe that the Jews should be exterminated.” Under Musk’s watchful eye, some kinds of speech has blossomed on Twitter, with several groups estimating the use of the n-word and gay slurs are up 58% and 62% respectively. You can’t claim that Musk doesn’t make things happen.

However, some things indicate that Musk may not be an absolutist regarding free speech. Apparently, his feelings get hurt when the speech relates to him (good thing he’s not a gay Jew). Pre-Musk, Twitter had a freewheeling internal culture that allowed for, even encouraged, employees to question corporate decision-making. When Musk came on board, changed the Twitter rules. Without notice, Musk recently fired employees who had engaged in the same kind of internal (not external) criticism and dissent that had previously been encouraged. Expect that lawsuits by employees will be pursued, but they’ll be in a race to see if they can get a judgment and recover before Musk burns it all to the ground.