Unfortunately for free speech, Elon Musk is plenty censorious.
• When a caver embarrassed Musk by helping rescue children from a Thai cave and calling Musk's inadequate assistance efforts a PR stunt, Musk smeared him as a "pedo guy" and then hired a private investigator (and convicted felon) to dig up dirt on the caver when he sued Musk for defamation.
• Tesla employees and ex-employees have been subject to non-disclosure and mandatory-arbitration policies, one of which the NLRB found unlawful last year.
Musk doesn't give a fuck about anyone's free speech but his own. What he postures about free speech on Twitter, I think he basically means that he wants to continue committing securities fraud, breaking labor law, and harvesting backslaps from his fans on the platform.
Excellent point about negative partisanship. You're right, Trump's Twitter ban hurts Democrats. But I can tell you from long personal experience with the online left that they will never get that.
Unfortunately for free speech, Elon Musk is plenty censorious.
• When a caver embarrassed Musk by helping rescue children from a Thai cave and calling Musk's inadequate assistance efforts a PR stunt, Musk smeared him as a "pedo guy" and then hired a private investigator (and convicted felon) to dig up dirt on the caver when he sued Musk for defamation.
• As part of that defamation suit, Musk tried to depose a journalist reporting on it (https://twitter.com/rmac18/status/1189000865060753409).
• Multiple Tesla whistleblowers have accused Tesla of retaliation, and Musk himself "set out to destroy" Martin Tripp when he blew the whistle on excessive waste at a battery factory (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp). Another whistleblower alleged that Tesla had equipment installed at the same factory to snoop on employees' cellphones (https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/16/17704274/tesla-gigafactory-drug-trafficking-cover-up-sec-whistleblower).
• Tesla employees and ex-employees have been subject to non-disclosure and mandatory-arbitration policies, one of which the NLRB found unlawful last year.
• Tesla even demanded that customers sign NDAs in exchange for a repair or refund (https://www.forbes.com/sites/lianeyvkoff/2016/06/09/is-tesla-trying-to-keep-owners-from-reporting-vehicle-safety-problems/).
• Musk publicly asked for his Wikipedia page to be censored (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1208830673995198465).
• Musk personally canceled the Tesla order of a "rude" blogger (https://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/03/elon-musk-personally-cancels-rude-customers-tesla-order.html).
• When BBC TV show Top Gear depicted a Tesla Roadster running out of juice, Tesla sued and Elon Musk asked the BBC to edit or pull the relevant episode (https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-on-top-gear-it-was-fucked-up-5789157).
Musk doesn't give a fuck about anyone's free speech but his own. What he postures about free speech on Twitter, I think he basically means that he wants to continue committing securities fraud, breaking labor law, and harvesting backslaps from his fans on the platform.
Excellent point about negative partisanship. You're right, Trump's Twitter ban hurts Democrats. But I can tell you from long personal experience with the online left that they will never get that.