I reported earlier about Elon Musk’s remarks on a podcast at a tech summit, taking Joe Biden to task when it comes to inflation. He also mocked Biden by saying whoever was truly behind the teleprompter controlled the presidency. I mentioned how it sounded like he’d been red-pilled.
Turns out there was more to the podcast and indeed, it sounds like he has been. He’s making it official, and this is going to infuriate the left even more.
Musk mentioned how he had always voted Democratic, saying he wasn’t sure that he’d ever voted for a Republican. But in this next election, he will be voting Republican.
Elon Musk says he will vote Republican for FIRST time EVER after absolutely SAVAGING Joe Brandon in brutal roast pic.twitter.com/sxWybzsFDy
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 17, 2022
“I have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, historically. Like I’m not sure, I might never have voted for a Republican, just to be clear,” Elon said. “Now this election, I will.” He isn’t the only one, and he’s just a sign of a larger movement coming.
Musk attacked the “left-wing bias” of Twitter, which Project Veritas confirmed with a damning video they just released. He said that it wasn’t going to be a “right-wing takeover” of Twitter, but a “moderate-wing takeover,” so that all could express themselves in the “digital town square. That’s what the right has been celebrating — just the idea of basic fairness, not being banned for political belief, not having information suppressed because it doesn’t serve the Democratic political narrative.
But the left can’t even take that. They melt down and attack Musk because they don’t want to lose the power that they’ve exercised over the platform. That reaction and the way they have come after him, in addition to what he has described as their radical move to the left, has no doubt moved him to change how he will be voting.
But unlike some on the left, Musk even takes people coming back at him and attacking him as a part of the landscape, saying he shouldn’t be able to control everything; he wouldn’t want to be able to stop people from criticizing him. Now, that’s the right attitude to have, and it means he truly gets the concept of free speech that he’s fighting for — that even those who would go after him get to speak. If he can achieve that, then it truly is a “town square.”
Musk also noted something else in the podcast — his concern about bots. Musk’s Twitter acquisition has been on hold for a few days, after he questioned whether the spam/fake accounts comprise fewer than 5 percent of users. The more fake accounts there are, the less the worth of the platform, and so, the less it’s a desirable purchase.
20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be *much* higher.
My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate.
Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%.
This deal cannot move forward until he does.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 17, 2022
But it’s not just the value of the purchase, but how bots manipulate your experience on the platform. If suddenly you see a lot of folks posting things favorable about Joe Biden, is it because Joe Biden suddenly became popular or that the Democrats have a bot machine going full blast? You know the answer to that already, since Joe isn’t popular. That’s something else Musk wants to do away with.
But Tim Draper — an investor close to Musk who’s putting $100 million into the Twitter effort with him — said he believed the deal was still going to go through, just that the price should be dropped to match the reality. “But I think he’s going to get a better deal because he found out that, whatever, two-thirds [of users] are bots or something.” Musk has said he’s still committed to the deal. But he isn’t the richest man in the world by accident — he’s going to try to get the best deal that he can under the circumstances.
Parag Agrawal posted a long Twitter thread on Monday about how they have been addressing bots, likely trying to mollify Musk and downplay the issue.
Musk’s simple response? A poop emoji.
💩
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022