Elon Musk is a weirdo POS

[frank ryan]

How does he throttle free speech on X? Relative to Twitter?

I'd to hear why you like him. And how his influence doesn't alarm you.

He bans his critics, he goes after anyone who boycotts one of his companies. He is very selective about what policies are enforced.

He is certainly not better than twitter. It's as concerning to me that he uses it as bully pulpit. He amplifies some hateful voices like Tommy Robinson and Nick Fuentes.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I'd to hear why you like him. And how his influence doesn't alarm you.

what does that have to do with my question?

He bans his critics, he goes after anyone who boycotts one of his companies. He is very selective about what policies are enforced.

This is what I am curious about. Which of his critics has been banned? Do you have any examples? I see lots of criticism of Musk on X.

He is certainly not better than twitter. It's as concerning to me that he uses it as bully pulpit. He amplifies some hateful voices like Tommy Robinson and Nick Fuentes.

If you are saying that he allows speech you personally don't like, that kind of cuts into your "Musk is against free speech" narrative, doesn't it? Kind of argues the opposite.

[Shaka]

Elon Musk continues to an be an asshole. He funnelling lots of money to Ken Paxton.

Elon is extremely partisan and despite his story, he didn't turn twitter into a bastion of free speech.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/05/politics/musk-america-pac-texas-paxton

He has waaaay too much power and influence.

Musk is contributing money to a political candidate of his choice? Even worse, he has business interests and lives in the state! How can that be allowed to happen!?!

It sucks that X lets any person, regardless of political affiliation, post and comment. The proletariat can't be trusted to parse opinions on their own. Twitter was much better aligned with free speech principles when it banned certain political opinions and users for the "common good".

Oh, the humanity!

[frank ryan]

what does that have to do with my question?



This is what I am curious about. Which of his critics has been banned? Do you have any examples? I see lots of criticism of Musk on X.



If you are saying that he allows speech you personally don't like, that kind of cuts into your "Musk is against free speech" narrative, doesn't it? Kind of argues the opposite.

Good grief. It doesn't have to have anything to do with your question, other than I'm curious why are defensive of him.

It's not that he "allows speech" that I don't like. He amplifies it and amplifies misinformation There's a big difference.

I could google a list of people he has banned but I feel I'd just get some eyerolls or something similar.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Good grief. It doesn't have to have anything to do with your question, other than I'm curious why are defensive of him.

It's not that he "allows speech" that I don't like. He amplifies it and amplifies misinformation There's a big difference.

I could google a list of people he has banned but I feel I'd just get some eyerolls or something similar.

You made a claim about free speech on X under Musk's leadership. I was genuinely curious to see that explained in more detail. Apparently, asking that question upsets you for some reason. I have no idea why.

Here is a ChatGPT summary:

(question: "Give me a non-biased and balanced summary of free speech on x vs when it was twitter.")

The fairest overall conclusion is:

• If “more free speech” means fewer removals and more controversial opinions remaining online, X generally provides more latitude than pre-acquisition Twitter.
• If it means that ordinary users can speak without harassment, misinformation, algorithmic disadvantages, or arbitrary enforcement, the answer is mixed. X reduced some forms of centralized moderation, but introduced other concerns involving paid prioritization, owner influence, inconsistent enforcement, and greater exposure to abusive content.
• Twitter was not neutral or perfectly consistent; it was criticized for over-removal, ideological bias, opaque “visibility filtering,” and mistakes. X is not simply “free speech with no moderation” either; it still removes and suppresses substantial amounts of content.

So the change is best described as a shift from “more centralized, interventionist moderation” to “more permissive speech rules combined with selective reach limits and more owner- and algorithm-driven discretion.”

[Jeff Lebowski]

FYI:

(question: Does elon musk promote or amplify nick fuentes?)

Not personally, in the sense of retweeting or endorsing him. What Musk did do was restore Fuentes to the platform. In May 2024 Musk said Fuentes would be reinstated "provided he does not violate the law," adding that it was better to have such views in the open to be rebutted than "simmering in the darkness." X is the only mainstream social platform where Fuentes has an account, and he has since built a following of over a million. Critics treat that as amplification in effect, since a reinstatement plus algorithmic reach on a large platform does more for someone's audience than any individual repost would. The HillJewish Insider

The personal relationship has gone the other way. In December 2025 Musk replied "He's a Fed" to a post mocking Fuentes, and the claim was quickly hit with a Community Note saying there was no credible evidence Fuentes is a federal informant. Musk made the accusation after sharing a report claiming Fuentes's engagement numbers on X reflected algorithmic manipulation rather than organic growth. He also appeared to hide a reply from Fuentes's account. Elon Musk Brands Far-Right Firebrand Nick Fuentes a “Fed” +2

So the honest answer depends on what you mean by "amplify." Musk gave Fuentes back a platform he had lost everywhere else and has defended that on free-speech grounds, which materially expanded Fuentes's reach. He has not promoted Fuentes's content, and by late 2025 the two were publicly hostile. Anything after that I'd want to check, since the two have cycled through positions quickly.

That was Claude

[chrisrenrut]

Here's one very recent example:

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[frank ryan]

Not Claude. I ask GPT for examples of critics Elon has banned.



Yes. If by “banned” you mean accounts suspended by X/Twitter while Elon Musk owned and controlled the company, some of the most notable cases include:

• ElonJet / Jack Sweeney — Sweeney ran the account tracking Musk’s private jet using publicly available flight data. Musk personally announced its suspension in December 2022.
• Ryan Mac — New York Times technology reporter. His account was suspended in December 2022 after reporting on Musk and the ElonJet controversy.
• Drew Harwell — Washington Post technology reporter. Suspended during the same December 2022 episode.
• Donie O'Sullivan — CNN reporter. Suspended after covering Musk and the ElonJet controversy.
• Matt Binder — Mashable journalist. His account was also suspended during the December 2022 crackdown.
• Keith Olbermann — Political commentator and frequent Musk critic; his account was temporarily suspended in 2022 after a dispute involving Musk.
• Linette Lopez — Business Insider journalist who had extensively criticized Musk and Tesla; her account was temporarily restricted/suspended during Musk's ownership.
• Mastodon — Not a person, but X also suspended the official Mastodon account after it posted a link to the ElonJet account.

[frank ryan]

Musk pushes divisive content and is incredibly partisan. Why this doesn't alarm more people mystifies me.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk-posts-january-white-supremacists

Elon Musk posted about race almost every day in January

This article is more than 6 months old

Many social media posts by Tesla CEO on his platform are indiscernible from those of white supremacists, say experts


Elon Musk’s longtime fixation on a white racial majority is intensifying. The richest man in the world posted about how the white race was under threat, made allusions to race science or promoted anti-immigrant conspiracy content on 26 out of 31 days in January, according to the Guardian’s analysis of his social media output. The posts, made on his platform X, reflect a renewed embrace of what extremism experts describe as white supremacist material.


Whites are a rapidly dying minority,” Musk said on 22 January, a short time before taking the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, while reposting an Irish anti-immigrant influencer’s video about demographic change.

Musk’s posts included him repeatedly claiming white people face systemic discrimination, endorsing the conspiracy that there is an ongoing genocide against white people in countries around the world and promoting a claim that white people would be “slaughtered” by non-whites if they become a demographic minority.

“If you stripped Elon Musk’s name off of these things and showed them to me, I would think that this was a white supremacist,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Extremism, who reviewed a selection of the posts.

Read more
Musk has for years promoted anti-immigrant and far-right content in his posts, as well as endorsed rightwing activists and political parties around the globe. The Tesla CEO’s most recent output displays a more consistent and explicit engagement with white supremacist content and nativist activists than in the past, however, lending them the imprimatur of the world’s richest person and spreading their ideas to his audience of over 200 million followers. Beirich said he appeared “deep into the world of white nationalism”.


“The White ‘liberal’ standard for behavior is extremely strict, but is only applied to Whites,” Musk said on 26 January, commenting on a post that claimed there was discrimination against white conservatives.

Musk’s posts repeatedly echoed prominent white supremacist narratives and ideologies, said William Braniff, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security’s office for prevention of terrorism and extremism. Several of Musk’s posts included what Braniff described as “textbook examples” of white supremacist conspiracy theories such as “the great replacement” – a belief that liberal elites or Jewish people are conspiring to use immigration to replace white populations.

The danger of Musk’s obsession lies in mainstreaming ideas that are deeply tied to violence and discrimination, according to Braniff, who is now executive director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (Peril) at American University. “The great replacement has been an especially important mobilizing narrative for highly lethal white supremacist attacks in the United States and elsewhere,” he said.

Musk has repeatedly denied he is racist or antisemitic, stated that he condemns terrorism and said he does not advocate for violence. He asserted in a 2024 interview with Don Lemon that he does not subscribe to “great replacement theory”. He also told Joe Rogan in March last year that he is not a Nazi, weeks after facing condemnations from Jewish groups and the chairman of the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel over his speech to Germany’s far-right AfD party in which he told Germans to move beyond their “past guilt”.

[chrisrenrut]

Musk is contributing money to a political candidate of his choice? Even worse, he has business interests and lives in the state! How can that be allowed to happen!?!

It sucks that X lets any person, regardless of political affiliation, post and comment. The proletariat can't be trusted to parse opinions on their own. Twitter was much better aligned with free speech principles when it banned certain political opinions and users for the "common good".

Oh, the humanity!

You label Ken Paxton as a "political candidate". That's like saying Trump is a simple civil servant. You can't ignore the baggage they carry and expect your argument to be taken seriously.

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[Shaka]

He is, in fact, a political candidate. It's the voter's job to compare them to who the other side is putting up.

[chrisrenrut]

He is, in fact, a political candidate. It's the voter's job to compare them to who the other side is putting up.

And does the average voter have billions to try and tip the scales of the outcome? That's is what Elon is doing.

[Shaka]

And does the average voter have billions to try and tip the scales of the outcome? That's is what Elon is doing.

Has he spent billions? Somehow I doubt it. As for me, I'm most likely going to vote for an imperfect Republican rather than a commie.....errrr socialist Democrat candidate.

[chrisrenrut]

Has he spent billions? Somehow I doubt it.

He has billions. He will likely spend $10 million or more.

As for me, I'm most likely going to vote for an imperfect Republican rather than a commie.....errrr socialist Democrat candidate.

That about sums it up. No surprises here,

[frank ryan]

He has billions. He will likely spend $10 million or more.



That about sums it up. No surprises here,

Talarico isn't exactly extremist either. Still have heard any convincing reasons to believe is a good guy.