Jive Turkey

Elon Musk’s unseriousness about free speech laid bare.

By
91
Elon Musk (Photo by Carina Johansen/NTB/AFP/Getty Images.)

To use Twitter in the Elon Musk era is to be reminded daily of how fundamentally juvenile the new owner is. And to me, it’s a recurring surprise.

Those who have followed his career closely will roll their eyes at that. Being surprised at Elon’s adolescent sensibility in 2023 is like being surprised at Donald Trump’s narcissism. It’s his defining trait. If you’re only now noticing it, you clearly haven’t paid him a lick of attention.

And it’s true, I hadn’t until he bought Twitter. I knew him as the world’s richest man and the head of two paradigm-shifting companies. It didn’t occur to me that someone so capable could be so immature.

And now everyone’s rolling their eyes at my naïveté.

This content is available exclusively to Dispatch members
Try a membership for full access to every newsletter and all of The Dispatch. Support quality, fact-based journalism.
Start Your Free Trial
Already a paid member? Sign In
91
By
Comments (91)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Avatar photo
    Alexander Ioannidis

    Jonah was correct. Twitter has improved under Musk, but it doesn’t truly protect free speech. I made a truth social because of how volatile the promise of free speech is on Twitter.

    Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    Gbr0wn

    (3 sentences in): Yawn, another stream of consciousness harangue on nothing of importance
    Dude - take some time away from the keyboard to condense your thoughts a bit. No one has time for this

    Collapse
  3. Robert

    "Vijaya Gadde, the former top lawyer at the company, is a villain to the right for her role in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election, but she fought hard abroad for freedom of speech."

    Oh great, so let's praise her for her work abroad and give her a pass right here at home.

    Collapse
  4. Avatar photo
    Xsearnold

    As much as I feel that the analogy between Musk and a 14-year-old is an apt one, I can't help but feel it's unfair to 14-year-olds.

    Collapse
  5. Drsterrett

    "Musk could have sued, as other prominent online platforms have."

    They did.

    "Five court orders have been issued against Twitter regarding these actions and we have already objected to four of them. While one of our objections has been rejected, three of them are still under review. We are filing our objections to the fifth order tomorrow."

    Criticise the man all you want for being a man child - but get the facts straight.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      J.R.

      You're saying these objections are equivalent to an actual lawsuit? Got some facts to back that assertion up?

      Collapse
      1. Drsterrett

        Happy to talk American civil procedure with you - but am not up on Turkish process. The point is unless Twitter is lying they fighting the Turkish law in court. Call it what you want. If you are looking at the Wikipedia litigation - it took several challenges and about 2 1/2 years to play out. And then the Turkish government amended its laws.

        https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1658570422991089664

        Again - nail Musk to the wall for the crap he says. But to attack him on this decision is disingenuous. Nick hid the ball.

        Collapse
        1. Avatar photo
          J.R.

          The crucial difference here is that Wikipedia refused to cave to those authoritarian demands (to censor entries on state-sponsored terrorism) and suffered for that refusal until they'd successfully fought those demands in court. Speaking of America, an analogous situation in the US might be Apple's refusal to unlock an iPhone for the FBI. Apple was sued and fought that suit until it was dropped. What they didn't do was cave to the demand and then claim they were continuing to fight against it or that caving to it would have been in any way compatible with their well known stance on iPhone privacy and security.

          Nick did not hide the ball. This was very clearly Musk failing to go to the wall for free speech and Nick called him on it. If you want to defend it as a good business decision that's probably a reasonable position, but your facts were wrong. Twitter has not taken anything resembling the approach other companies who sued to fight censorship have.

          Collapse
          1. Drsterrett

            Nick hid the ball by not disclosing the fact that Twitter challenged these orders. He created the false impression that Twitter simply laid down and didn't use the legal process to defend its users.

            I am as libertarian as they come on this - but its a tough call. If Twitter followed the Wikipeida model and refused to comply with the orders, they would have throttled during the lead up to the election (they were recently throttled during the massive earth quake). This would have been a win for Erdogan and blow to speech in Turkey (which is why Erdogan is using the law to target these platforms).

            Collapse
  6. MrMalredo

    There is a certain kind of rich person who can not be satisfied with just being rich and feels the need to spend their funny to make themselves a public figure. Musk is one of those. Trump is the patron saint of these types, becoming the tabloid star, building the Art of the Deal persona (well, his ghostwriter built it for him), becoming the reality TV star and finally the politician. See Mark Cuban for a less toxic brand of this archetype. Though Trump has 2 bit real estate developer money, while Musk has Master of the Universe level money, so Musk can buy his own social media network and use it as pretty much just a tool to build his own celebrity.

    Collapse
    1. Mick Givens

      "The book is to an enormous extent about this man who's trying to control a narrative. And this is something that I found about wealth in general and wealth in America in particular. Great fortunes have the ability to distort and warp the reality around themselves. Furthermore, they have the power to align, to bend reality according to their own designs. I think, in fact, the greatest luxury good today out there is not, you know, mansions or yachts. It is reality itself."
      https://www.npr.org/2023/05/13/1176001701/hernan-diaz-on-his-pulitzer-prize-winning-novel-trust

      Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    LakesideBill

    Instead of constantly trashing Musk, how about invite him to join you on the Dispatch Live? He has shown himself willing to grant an interview to just about anyone on just about any topic. In addition to asking him about Twitter, perhaps you might find time to ask him about space travel, electric cars, satellite internet, and AI? Would Dispatch listeners find those topics interesting, or are we just interested in hearing unchallenged denunciations?

    Collapse
    1. Mick Givens

      "He has shown himself willing to grant an interview to just about anyone on just about any topic"

      Which is exactly why we *don't* need another interview with him and can talk about his endless musings.

      Collapse
    2. Avatar photo
      Kizedek

      Would be nice if he hadn't withdrawn Ukrainian access to satellite internet.

      Collapse
    3. Hikingguy

      I have no interest at all in hearing any more from Elon Musk.

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Abridge683

        And yet he controls a prominent social network through which much news and information still flows in spite of his seeming attempts to destroy it. Because he's not accountable to anyone else having his performance called out is important.

        Collapse
  8. Pundette

    So the genius who created Tesla and SpaceX is juvenile in his emotions and behavior at times? So what. I thought we were supposed to "listen to the children." Greta Thunberg seemed pretty emotionally labile, irrational, narcissistic, unstable, and annoyingly adolescent, but the Left fell down at her feet. And has she produced anything for us besides hormonal angst?

    Collapse
    1. Mick Givens

      You're using Greta Thunberg whataboutism to 'so what' about Elon Musk? lol - okay, you do you.

      Collapse
      1. Pundette

        LOL! Ahm jus' sayin' Mick Givens. If we're going to deify immaturity, I'll stick with Musk's brand over Thunberg's. %-)

        Collapse
        1. Lemuel

          Why?

          Collapse
  9. Paul in NC

    Elon Musk behaves much the way most men on the "online right" do these days: thin-skinned and belligerent, like Trump. These days, right-wing nationalist men equate behaving like a self-important, boorish a**hole with being masculine. The funny thing is, no matter how much these phony-patriot clowns puff up, they have never looked weaker and more silly. Elon Musk made a lot of grandiose statements about free speech, but that was all talk. Musk has now lost tens of billions of dollars in wealth and is buckling like a belt for any two-bit despot who applies even a little pressure. Like Trump, Elon Musk is a weak little man with money trying like hell to make himself look like a strongman. The low-intelligence right eats it up, too.

    Collapse
  10. Richard Kennedy

    I’m barely into the article and I wonder what the difference is between Musk’s and Trump’s behavior. Yes, Trump is narcissistic, but I fail to see any other distinction between these two 14 year olds.

    Collapse
Load More