Elon Musk, the richest man in the history of the world, is now the sole owner of Twitter. As we know well from the Trump years, Twitter is most often a cesspool of toxic waste that is best for unintentional hilarity. This only adds to that, in my opinion. Yes, Elon claims to be a free speech absolutist, but is he really? And what does that mean for Twitter? Let’s find out.

To properly dissect Musk’s claims of being a free speech absolutist, we first have to look at how he treats his workers’ free speech rights. The answer is that Musk is exactly like every other executive in the business: Not an absolutist. Take, for example, the stories of numerous laid-off Tesla workers being asked what’s pretty much an NDA on the way out. While my source article for this points out this is not uncommon, that doesn’t make it anything close to good. Take this excerpt from a Tesla separation agreement as reported by CNBC: “You agree not to disparage Tesla, the Company’s products, or the Company’s officers, directors, employees, shareholders and agents, affiliates and subsidiaries in any manner likely to be harmful to them or their business, business reputation or personal reputation.” Is that not a flagrant violation of free speech? 

That’s not even mentioning the hostile work environment at Tesla, ripe with harassment and unsafe conditions. In short, Elon needs to put his money where his mouth is. Maybe demanding personal review of all articles concerning SpaceX one time isn’t actually promoting freedom of the press. Also, back in 2018, back when he was “just” the Tesla guy, he scolded an analyst on an earnings call. His actual words were, according to CNBC, “Excuse me, next, next. Boring, bonehead questions are not cool.” Tesla had just posted its worst quarterly loss up until that point. And that’s saying something, considering that Tesla was not consistently profitable at a significant level until 2020. The graph I found starts in 2010. Tesla’s been a household name since around 2013. How on Earth did it take that long for the profits and growth to become consistent?

Elon Musk can barely handle his own account, let alone the entire platform. Let’s just say I’d be generous to call the world’s richest man an edgy tryhard if we only looked at his Twitter. Then again, that would apply to tens of millions of people. Because of that, I’d argue him and Twitter were made for each other. Take the numerous occasions in which he torpedoed Tesla’s stock price via literally tweeting that it was “too high.” No, Elon, the only thing too high was you when you guested on Joe Rogan’s podcast (Shameless self-promotion: I have an entry on Rogan, too!). He supported Kanye West’s sham 2020 Presidential bid, too, so that’s gotta be worth something. Also, let’s not forget the time when Musk had the audacity to call a man rescuing kids from a cave in Thailand a “pedo.” That is quite possibly ironic, considering this one photo that exists of Elon standing next to Ghislaine f***ing Maxwell. Not saying that he is one for sure, but if an unedited picture exists of anyone next to Epstein or Maxwell, my suspicions are raised.

 There’s so much more, too. All you have to do is check his feed and wonder if it’s being run by a spiteful nihilist. This man has more money than even Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, and he is still very obviously not satisfied with his life. He gives the Gilded Age robber barons a run for their money, quite literally, and he turns out to be the living, breathing Oscar the Grouch. Actually, that isn’t even true, because at least Oscar isn’t weighing in on global events and culture wars alike. This man’s success makes my brain hurt. Now, if you all can excuse me, I’m going to take a shower to clear out the headache I got from just typing this.