Elon Musk is Rupert Murdoch on steroids.
Elon Musk is operating at such a high level
compared to Rupert Murdoch a totally different league.
Firstly Elon Musk has 85 million twitter followers himself
a channel directly talking to tens of millions of people.
He can directly get in newspapers
on the television he can play the media environment
in a way reminiscent of Donald Trump through tweets.
Secondly he's extraordinarily rich in a way that Murdoch never was.
Murdoch is a billionaire but he was never amongst
the world's wealthiest people.
Rupert Murdoch made his money from the media
Elon Musk has made his money in other industries.
Newspaper owners like Murdoch love to think
they can make or break politicians.
Elon Musk may have the opportunity
to give a platform back to the next president of the USA
on a social media network with 300 million monthly users.
There's no speculation there there's no 'well my view is,
the media played a major role.'
He would be giving a megaphone to one of the world's most
powerful figures and it's entirely down to him.
I think in terms of brute force and power,
that's the level of authority that Rupert Murdoch never ever had.
In terms of deal making and what Elon Musk is presently doing
with twitter Elon Musk is Rupert Murdoch on steroids.
This was the world's wealthiest man wanting to buy not just a media outlet
or a newspaper or a tv channel but a social network with 300 million monthly users it is
far and above anything else we've seen in terms of deal making by the global one percent i think
in many ways it is the most impressive deal if it goes through in history the purchase of a social
media network by the world's wealthiest person who by the way is the ceo of tesla he's also the
ceo of spacex twitter and spacex are both private companies controlled by the same guy 20 years ago
this would have been a joke a social media company and a space transportation company owned by the
same billionaire worth a quarter of a trillion u.s dollars but that's the world we now live in
in a capitalist society money is power what we've seen over the last 25 years is a rapid and
historic concentration of money in the global one percent and that concentration of money therefore
represents a concentration of power Elon Musk is worth 260 billion us dollars he can't give that
money away quickly enough in 2020 Elon Musk made 18 million dollars an hour so if you're a charity
you said mr Musk let's sit down half now will you give me five million dollars no during that
conversation he just made nine million dollars they literally can't give it away quickly enough
now this has huge implications for a free society because he just spent 44 billion on twitter okay
half of that is from other people but one billion us dollars would remake the u.s media landscape if
you gave socialists and trade unions and working people a billion dollars to spend on media in
the united states it will transform the public conversation this guy's worth 260 billion dollars
when somebody has that much money and therefore that much power it necessarily undermines the
power of the rest of us you have jeff bezos worth 180 billion us dollars he has the washington post
you've got other billionaires like john henry has the boston globe carlos slim one of the wealthiest
people in the world has the largest share in new york times they do this to give themselves even
greater power so you have a process where the wealthiest most powerful people in the world
invest and accumulate and get more power this is necessarily to the detriment of the rest of us
this is necessarily undermining limiting the rest of us to influence society in our rational
self-interest so free speech for billionaires equates to limited or no speech for the 99
right now we have a media in print in broadcast which is directly reflecting their interests and
nobody else's in the uk if you pick up a newspaper it's highly likely that it's controlled or owned
by billionaires lord rothermere with the mail the barclay brothers with the telegraph the sun and
Rupert Murdoch the sun is not a business interest the sun newspaper has been losing money for a long
time Rupert Murdoch doesn't own it to make money he owns it in order to exert political influence
and help determine what prime minister we have in this country these are play things the one percent
and they shouldn't be doing that they should be acting in the public interest and informing us
about the various decisions that we should be making together in a democracy people who think
it's legitimate for billionaires to own newspapers and tv channels and social media networks
fundamentally can't believe in democracy because in a democracy a single individual doesn't have
that much power over the public conversation and importantly the public imagination
every billionaire is a policy failure but i think some billionaires are worse than others
so Elon Musk is worth 260 billion dollars i think he's done bad things and i think
most people would agree that the worst thing he's done is not put his wealth to better use
but there are worse people out there the saudi royal family peter thiel the koch brothers i
mean these are people the koch brothers who over decades have undermined the democratic process
and workers rights in America it's been their full-time job or Rupert Murdoch if you're looking
for a bad guy a villain most responsible for the global north failing to address climate change
since the 1970s one individual it would be Rupert Murdoch so Elon Musk is far from perfect
but if i had to pick a bad guy billionaire out there who's been a net negative for the human
species believe me he's nowhere near the top it's hard to make sense of Elon Musk and why he does
things firstly he says he's committed to the truth he said he studied physics because it was solid
it wasn't about opinion it was either right or wrong for him it's the same with free speech
people shouldn't be subject to not having a platform because of what they're saying either
what they say is right or what they're saying is wrong and you can't test that
unless they're allowed to say what they think so i think that's partly it there's another part to it
less noble let's say and by the way the free speech thing is far more complicated than he lets
on which i think is political tesla is the world's most valuable manufacture of cars in the world joe
biden as democratic president has had a very close relationship to the detroit car makers general
moses and chrysler very close the democrats have generally remember that barack obama bailed them
out these are big unionized workplaces key states for the democratic party blue collar working
Americans that is their base particularly for biden who appreciates this right now Elon Musk is
thinking well i'm leading on decarbonization i'm the guy who's in charge of the most influential
electric vehicle company and in any conversation about electric cars the united states joe biden's
talking about general motors and chrysler and that hummer's one hell of a vehicle man
yo you electrified the entire automobile industry i'm serious
you led now this got so bad that earlier this year in january Elon Musk tweeted that joe biden was a
damp sock puppet in human form so it's fair to say there's a breakdown in relations between joe biden
the oval office the democratic presidency and Elon Musk and i think for Elon Musk he thinks well if i
can buy twitter and if i can allow trump to come back on or whoever for that matter the democrats
have to take me seriously joe biden has to take me seriously in fact everybody in American politics
and civil society has to take me seriously this is somebody who is involved in space transportation
with tesla with the boring company he wants these all to be huge trillion dollar companies to do
that you need massive political influence there's no better way of getting political influence than
owning a social media network owning a newspaper or a tv station by comparison is child's play
there's a reason why Elon Musk has just bought twitter there's a reason why Rupert Murdoch
owns the sun these people want media which advances their interests now the only way
we can build a society where working people have politics in their interests
is by having media outlets of our own double dan news has done extraordinary work in the last few
years on a shoestring i can't recommend them enough support them on their patreon