Right-wing users are celebrating Elon Musk buying Twitter not for his “free speech” promises but because he could make the platform serve their populist agenda
Elon Musk has purchased Twitter. For a paltry sum of $44 billion … Gabrielle Bienasz / Insider : Cofounder Jack Dorsey was reportedly whispering in Elon Musk's ear that Twitter should be taken private Tweets: Elon Musk / @elonmusk : [image of a Colin Wright cartoon: stick people of the left, center, and right in 2008, 2012, and 2021] Elon Musk / @elonmusk : But I'm no fan of the far right either. Let's have less hate and more love. Elon Musk / @elonmusk : The far left hates everyone, themselves included! @chenweihua : @elonmusk Elon Musk should remove my label. Also, when people want to like or RT my tweets, they are now reminded by Twitter that “this is state affiliated media”. This is totally discriminatory and suppression of free speech. Twitter must change such policy. Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : You're free to believe that people are wrong to think this. But if you really think there is vast outrage in the Twitter Facebook and YouTube user bases that they try to kick off the Nazis and ban trolls... you need to step outside the bubble. Tim Urban / @waitbutwhy : To be clear, the phenomenon I'm referring to is mostly happening outside of Washington - in places like academia, medicine, media, and publishing. It's what's happening in those places that has alienated many people who used to feel at home on the left. Tim Urban / @waitbutwhy : It's true that on aggregate, the right has moved more to the extreme than the left in Washington. But the small group on the far left has become very *culturally* powerful & out of fear, the rest of the left has often allowed them to speak (and make policies) for the whole left. Kevin M. Kruse / @kevinmkruse : One Joke to rule them all, One Joke to find them ... https://twitter.com/... @lolgop : Lots of dudes saying Twitter won't change much. I've seen zero trans people saying that. Because that's how targeted harassment works. https://twitter.com/... Colin Wright / @swipewright : @elonmusk Hi @elonmusk! Thank you for sharing my cartoon! If anyone wants to buy the mug, it's available in my store! https://www.etsy.com/... Paul Graham / @paulg : @elonmusk That is in fact what has happened. Since the 90s the right has moved a little further right, but the left has moved a lot further left. https://twitter.com/... Nick Martin / @nickmartin : A bunch of long-banned Nazis tried to start new accounts on Monday after the Elon Musk news broke. A lot of them got the boot within 24 hours. https://twitter.com/... Josh Marshall / @joshtpm : At some level you're dealing with someone who's bandwagoning the hot team late in a successful playoff run. It's all an inch deep. https://twitter.com/... Mehdi Hasan / @mehdirhasan : The guy who says he wants to equally offend ‘both sides’ to prove neutrality only ever seems to attack the left. So weird right? So weird? 🤔 https://twitter.com/... Anders Iversen / @anders_iversen : @waitbutwhy @SwipeWright Well those people on the right, might have a skewed view thanks to some very biased media. Take a look at this thread, and ask yourself: is the same thing true for liberal/progessive media? I don't think so - if it is then on an order of magnitude less. https://twitter.com/... Robert E Kelly / @robert_e_kelly : Chinese media complaining about suppression of free speech. Jesus https://twitter.com/... Tim Urban / @waitbutwhy : So even though the left hasn't moved that far left (as is shown by voting results), the left is in a sense being held hostage by their extreme wing, making a lot of people who enthusiastically voted for Obama feel politically homeless today. Noah Smith / @noahpinion : This thread illustrates, yet again, the fundamental dilemma of American politics: Progressives hold all the cultural power, while the Right can only respond with political power. When the Right holds political power, both sides feel like they're powerless. https://twitter.com/... @kfury : Musk joked about dropping the ‘w’ in ‘Twitter’ but it looks like his actual plan is to drop the ‘r’ from ‘Free speech’. https://twitter.com/... Adam Stein / @adamstein : @oneunderscore__ @atrupar Fixed it. https://twitter.com/... Tim Urban / @waitbutwhy : Today, Elon tweeted this diagram by @SwipeWright, which sums up how a lot of people (including me) feel. Then a bunch of ppl responded w/ graphs showing that Republican politicians have moved farther right in that time than Dems have moved left. Here's what I think is happening: https://twitter.com/... Duncan Jones / @manmademoon : Just a reminder that Elon's unequivocal defense of free speech somehow still allows him to run his factory in CCP controlled Shanghai. 🤷🏻♂ ️ (I continue to think Tesla is a net good, but EM is clearly a hot mess.) Adi Robertson / @thedextriarchy : the free speech absolutist urge to make people pay to engage with popular and important conversations https://twitter.com/... Sebastian Murdock / @sebastianmurdoc : elon is bringing back free speech!* *$2.99 per tweet https://twitter.com/... Ryan Gorman / @gormoexjourno : This is a terrible idea and immediately takes free speech from the masses in favor of giving it only to those who can afford to speak freely. Such actions would destroy Twitter. https://twitter.com/... @jonhumbert : Free speech, but you pay for it. Bang up job, board of directors. https://twitter.com/... Franklin Leonard / @franklinleonard : The Republican party won't admit that it lost the last Presidential election or that its supporters violently attacked the US Capitol at the urging of their losing candidate. So... no. https://twitter.com/... Rob Schneider / @robschneider : Here's to ALL THOSE idiots who are crying “Threat to Free Speech” now that Elon is buying Twitter who for the last 2 years defended Twitter censorship saying “It's a private company, they can do what they want!” https://twitter.com/... Darren Mooney / @darren_mooney : This is very good from @AdamSerwer on the right-wing persecution complex online, and how it's never right-wing speech under meaningful threat. https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... @philthatremains : The left doesn't want free speech and they don't want to give up this one lever of power. https://twitter.com/... Leta McCollough Seletzky / @laseletzky : “If conservatives successfully drive their targets off Twitter, or if the network becomes an unusable cesspool, it will become similarly worthless, both financially and politically.” https://twitter.com/... Greg Abbott / @gregabbott_tx : Texas man offers Elon Musk 100 acres of FREE land to move Twitter's headquarters. I will declare it a “Free Speech Zone” Maybe we can rename it Twitter, Texas. Think about it .@elonmusk https://www.chron.com/... via @chron Michele Norris / @michele_norris : And of course Adam rolls up with they wisdom https://twitter.com/... Molly Jong-Fast / @mollyjongfast : This is such a good point from @AdamSerwer https://twitter.com/... Eric Newcomer / @ericnewcomer : Pmarca basically went into hiding during the Trump presidency. But his political cowardice was his choice! Easier to be so bold once you're back in the opposition Gabe Rivera / @gaberivera : Everyone has their dumb take on this and my dumb take is that after 2008, sure, the right didn't move right in a classic sense, rather the whole line bent into a horseshoe, and then the right slid behind a dark corner. https://twitter.com/... Eric Newcomer / @ericnewcomer : I do suspect that psychologically part of why they feel like the left is so repressive is that they felt they couldn't speak openly about Trump https://twitter.com/... Natalie Wynn / @contrapoints : It's so pathetic that “I want to be as cruel as possible but the mods won't let me 🥺” is the best argument so many conservatives have for free speech. The triumphant small-mindedness of it, this flaunting of the worst tendencies in human nature Dave Karpf / @davekarpf : Look, I'm no business genius. But if MY fortune was tied up in running a company that sells luxury electric cars to left-leaning consumers, then I probably wouldn't go full Breitbart just when bigger car manufacturers have started releasing their own lines of electric vehicles. Brendan Nyhan / @brendannyhan : If growing up in the Silicon Valley taught me anything, it's that very smart tech people can be incredibly naive about politics and have absurdly simplistic views of how it should or does work Eric Newcomer / @ericnewcomer : Impressive how much Musk and Pmarca are able to talk about the political situation in the United States without talking about Trump @carnage4life : Every day on Twitter being about Elon Musk takes me back to the Trump presidency. I just want it to end. https://twitter.com/... Siva Vaidhyanathan / @sivavaid : This is the last thing I have to say about Musk. I'm tired of it all. He's not worth my attention any more. And after studying social media for a decade, immersed in a community of brilliant scholars, I'm sick of dilettantes mouthing off about it all. https://www.theguardian.com/ ... Philip Bump / @pbump : I fixed @elonmusk's chart. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Omar Sakr / @omarjsakr : Another swing and a miss from the “free speech” lover — literally erasing the free part lmao https://twitter.com/... @danahull : About 11% of Twitter users are Black. “What has Elon Musk done in his life to show he has the context or cultural competency” to run Twitter? by @itskelseybutler and @dinabass https://www.bloomberg.com/... @indivisibleteam : Ben is obviously correct, but the year that Republicans nominated Sarah Palin to be VP and held multiple rallies in which supporters chanted for the assassination of then-Sen. Obama is an interesting start point. https://twitter.com/... Mehdi Hasan / @mehdirhasan : It's scary that 1) he believes this nonsense, 2) posts this nonsense, and 3) will be controlling a huge social media platform while pushing this nonsense. Imagine thinking the right hasn't moved far right since 2008 (!) or isn't the source of political polarization in America. 🤦🏽♂ ️ https://twitter.com/... Ben Collins / @oneunderscore__ : I was alive in 2008. I must have just forgotten about the John McCain stans who stormed the Capitol after he lost because they were convinced he was finally going to arrest all of the lawmakers who were drinking baby blood under the pizza shop. https://twitter.com/... Charles Arthur / @charlesarthur : In reality, the GOP in the US is more far-right than Marine Le Pen, than UKIP in the UK, than pretty much any party in Europe. And that's a 2019 study; since 2020, the GOP has moved further right. Most Americans don't see how distorted their worldview is. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... @wavesblog : Our tweets and also intellectual interactions with others are the product - paid speech. https://twitter.com/... Jason Goldman / @goldman : There is of course a nuanced debate to be had about content moderation but right now we've reset the clock about 15 years as folks fumble through a first principles approach. And that makes dunking very easy but makes the risk of real harm very high. Linette Lopez / @lopezlinette : He can fire all the content moderators he wants, but that still won't save this business if it's paying $1B of interest on debt from this deal every year. https://www.bloomberg.com/... Eric Michael Garcia / @ericmgarcia : Corporate America has filled the void in civil society left by the weakness of organized labor, leaving a tiny number of extremely wealthy people with outside influence. @adamserwer nails it https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... @neillewisjr : “Money is speech, as long as you fund our interests. You have the right to vote, as long as you vote Republican. You have freedom of speech, as long as you say what the party would like you to say.” This entire article is great. https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... Eugene Scott / @eugene_scott : “For all their outrage, conservatives consistently receive preferential treatment from social-media platforms, but are so cavalier about disregarding the terms of service that sometimes they get banned anyway,” @AdamSerwer https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... @adamserwer : The argument over content moderation on social media is about political power, not free speech, but people say free speech because it sounds better https://www.theatlantic.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
The deal arrived after criticism that Musk's free-speech posture conflicted with his earlier efforts to stifle criticism at Tesla and SpaceX, while other coverage framed the bid as a political effort to reshape moderation and misinformation rules. The key issue is therefore not ownership alone, but whose speech and political organizing the new owner chooses to amplify or constrain.
Later coverage supplied an early test of those expectations: prominent antifascist organizers and journalists were suspended after right-wing operatives appealed directly to Musk. Reporting also characterized the platform's direction as an attempt to build a right-wing media heavyweight.
First-order effects
- Twitter's ownership and policy authority move to Musk, giving right-wing users who backed the deal a direct channel to press for moderation decisions aligned with their populist agenda.
- The purchase puts Musk's stated commitment to broad speech under immediate scrutiny from critics who had already tied his record at Tesla and SpaceX to suppressing dissent.
Second-order effects
- Political activists and journalists face a more personalized enforcement environment when appeals from organized groups can reach the platform's owner, as the later suspensions of antifascist accounts illustrate.
- Traditional media and political publishers must contend with Twitter becoming a potentially partisan distribution venue rather than a neutral conduit, consistent with reporting on its right-wing media ambitions.
Third-order effects
- If ownership-led enforcement becomes the durable model, a major communications platform's usable openness will depend less on published speech principles than on the political preferences of its controlling owner.
- The episode points to growing platform gatekeeper leverage: acquisition of a social network can consolidate both commercial control and influence over political visibility in one individual.
The trend: Social-platform ownership is becoming a vehicle for concentrated political influence, with moderation choices serving as the practical test of claimed openness.