Elon Musk is again claiming that he’s all about free speech. So let’s look at the record. Here’s thread with just a few of the countless examples showing he couldn't care about it less (🧵)
1. There's the time he called Vernon Unsworth, the man who helped rescue 12 boys trapped in a mine in Thailand, a “pedo guy” and paid $50,000 to an investigator to dig up Unsworth’s life. Why? Because Unsworth called his failed attempt help the boys himself a “PR stunt.”
2. Then there's the story of John Bernal, who was fired six days after posting a YouTube video of a Tesla accident.
cnbc.com/2022/03/15/tes…
3. Then, there's Martin Tripp, a technician at a Tesla plant in Nevada who blew the whistle on the company. Musk allegedly hired people to hack and spy on Tripp after he cast doubts on Tesla’s environmental credentials.
bloomberg.com/news/features/…
4. Musk also is anti free-speech when it comes to labor organizing. Tesla worker Richard Ortiz was fired for trying to organize with the United Auto Workers, a move that was declared illegal by a labor board.
nytimes.com/2021/03/25/bus…
5. Then there's the time Tesla asked China to censor comments that were critical of the company.
bloomberg.com/news/features/…
6. There's also the time Musk tried to out an anonymous Tesla critic, and skeptical investor who goes by "Montana Skeptic" to their employer.
popular.info/p/musk-is-a-fr…
7. He also has tried to use Twitter itself to suppress worker speech and organizing, a move deemed illegal by the NLRB.
nlrb.gov/case/32-CA-197…
I wrote about this back when his Twitter bullshit saga started, and of course there’s more in the articles linked above as well. And many more stories out there, but for anyone who believes that this is about him loving free speech, please dig deeper. 8/8
independent.co.uk/voices/elon-mu…
Hope it goes without saying but this is much bigger than one billionaire being a fraud and a liar. Our public squares and media platforms should not be for-profit entities and they certainly shouldn’t be controlled by the richest people on earth.
