Elon Moves Closer to Saving Free Speech on Twitter

BUCK: Clay, it does seem that the timing on this is all fortuitous with regard to Twitter because just before the news broke this morning that maybe Elon’s bid is gonna go through, Twitter says they will no longer allow advertisers who “deny the scientific consensus on climate change,” which is a policy that Google already has, by the way.

These people are so lacking in self-awareness and understanding of irony, it seems that they haven’t even gone back to look at what was “the scientific consensus” a year ago on how many shots you would need and how effective they’d be at stopping the spread? Consensus is not science, certainly on climate, Clay.

CLAY: It’s the exact opposite of science. You’re supposed to challenge everything. That’s the entire purpose of the scientific method that they used to teach back in school, where you come up with a thesis and then if you can prove the thesis, you’ve got a theory. But everything has to be questioned.

And, if there’s ever been a time to question science, I would think it would be in the past couple of years, because some of the most aggressive scientists out there were the ones who were telling us we had to shut down our beaches because of covid, we had to shut down or hiking trails, we had to fill in sand in the skate parks, we had to take the rims off basketball hoops.

All of this was what “the science” dictated, and if you questioned any of it, you weren’t allowed to have your voice propagated in an aggressive manner, thanks to the algorithms at play. And, Buck, this Twitter story, to me… If Elon Musk is able to buy Twitter, much as Fox News is one of the few places out there in television that’s willing to stand athwart whatever the mainstream perspective is on many different news stories and give us a perspective that is somewhat different than what CNN or MSNBC would be providing, there isn’t, so far, a Big Tech company that is not allied with the far left in this country.

And so Elon Musk, if he’s able to succeed — and as we speak right now, there seems to be increasing optimism that that is going to occur. The stock price of Twitter — which is often a sign of whether or not a deal might get done — is up near $51 a share. Elon Musk has offered $54.20. That’s starting to suggest that the people out there who own this stock — and I’m one of them — are starting to acquiesce to Elon Musk making this purchase. And I believe that Elon can be, for free speech, one of the biggest purveyors of a true marketplace of ideas that this country has ever been, if he’s able to buy Twitter and implement the policies that he has said he would like to.

BUCK: Did you see the fascinating exchange, Clay…? I am sure you did. Clay is… If Twitter is the Matrix, Clay is Neo or Morpheus. He’s on Twitter, like, all the time and, like, flying around. But it was someone else leaked text messages of Elon Musk and Bill Gates where Bill Gates said, “Hey, can you give me some for the Bill and Melinda Gates,” or is it now just the Bill Gates – “climate initiative?”

I think there was a little split there, the climate initiative. And Elon responded, “Are you still short Tesla, what is it, $500 million? Have you shorted, bet against, my stock $500 million?” And Bill Gates said, “Yes,” and this was all made public. This was all out there flying around on Twitter, and Elon says, “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to donate to you because you’re unserious about climate change if you’re trying to hurt the company that’s doing more than any other on the planet to address climate change.”

Now, put this aside for a second. Now, I don’t actually believe that climate change is an imminent threat or problem in any away shape or form. I think we’re adapting as we’ve always adapted over time with new technology. That is what Tesla and Elon and I’m sure some other companies that haven’t been as magnificently successful so far are actually doing.

When you have a guy who is running a company that is accomplishing so much in the face of so much incredible odds and opposition, who is now going to focus his understanding and attention on a social media platform that does more to mimic the town square of hundreds of years ago when all you had was maybe one printing press in the town, right?

I mean, the basis of information sharing for so many people who work in media is Twitter, and then that filters out into the websites that everyone reads and into the podcasts everyone listens to. Clay, he could do a lot more than just make it a free speech platform. He could just make it much better as a technology and as a system.

CLAY: Look, Elon Musk managed to put spaceships into space better than NASA, who had a 50- or 60-year advance start on him. He has come in and completely revolutionized how we power cars. I think he can probably figure out how to work Twitter in a more effective manner. One of the things he said — and I think this is probably true because, it’s the essence of non-content-based discrimination.

He said the 10% on the far left and the 10% on the far right should be equally angry at him. If that occurs, then he’s doing his job well. What’s going on right now, Buck — and I think for people out there who don’t use social media, we sometimes have to give sort of a tutorial on why it matters.

Make no mistake about what the far-left wing, Blue Checkmark Brigade is upset about, Buck. They’re upset because the ridding game that has been in their favor is potentially going to be ended and they’re gonna have to really compete in the marketplace of ideas. They are upset because Twitter has been favoring them, and you said, I think a couple of weeks ago:

What would be so interesting about this purchase would be if Elon Musk publicized all of the dings, all of the inner dirty laundry as pertains to how they were favoring certainly people, how they were favoring certain groups at the expense of the true marketplace of ideas. That’s what the left-wing, Blue Checkmark Brigade is so afraid of, that their rigged system is going to disappear and they’re gonna have to compete on an even playing field.

BUCK: Right. It goes after not only their control, but the only thing that I think you could argue the Democrat left cares about more than control — when we’re talking about a media context — is their egos.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: A lot of people think, “Oh, I just have great ideas and I’m so smart and I’ve got this audience.” Well, it doesn’t exist anywhere else. It really only seems to be that some of them have a pretty high number relative to their general notoriety when it comes to Twitter, and they don’t want people to say, “Oh, it turns out the people who disagree with me…” in this case conservatives but on a whole range of issues —

— I’m sure this will be the case — actually have much higher engagement, much more, much more support from actual human beings instead of a system that — in my own mind – effectively, my friends, what we could find out here, imagine — and I’m just gonna tell you this. It’s going on on Facebook. It’s already happening on Google too.

Google News and what pops up and what you see when you do search, and there’s so many ways the system is rigged. The only way that this gets better is if people have a full understanding of that, and it affects — in so many ways — everybody listening to this. I don’t care if you’re kicking it right now off the grid, listening to us on an old school radio.

Every product you’re going to buy when you go to the store, every time you’re interacting with people around you, there’s a tremendous influence that these tech giants have on what is bought, what is sold, what is thought, what is shared, all of it. So beginning to chip away at this… Why, does even the left…? They don’t complain as much. Remember it used to be, “Oh, but these upstart channels and these digital channels that are coming.

“It’s hurting our ability to tell the American people the truth from ABC and CBS and all this stuff.” Clay, they reestablished the old information-dominance sphere that they had. They just did it through the digital realm instead of the old-school legacy media instead of having the old transistors and the stuff you’re seeing on cable, all of it.

CLAY: Yeah. And, again, that’s why I think it’s so significant even for people who aren’t on social media because, if you have a true marketplace of ideas on Twitter, you also then have a marketplace of ideas potentially on YouTube or Google or Facebook or Apple, these places that have all acted in collusion. Again, remember how quickly everyone banned Donald Trump from social media platforms?