good evening and welcome to tucker
carlson tonight elon musk became famous
as a businessman
he makes electric cars and rockets and
has become the single richest person on
planet earth by doing that elon musk is
not from the united states he grew up in
south africa and yet he has a keen and
precise understanding of how our system
was designed to work as he put it on
twitter last month quote free speech is
essential to a functioning democracy
and then musk asked his 80 million
followers on twitter a very simple
question quote do you believe twitter
rigorously adheres to that principle
and overwhelmingly they answered no it
doesn't so elon musk understands
something about twitter that many people
in our country don't understand which is
it is the single most important forum
for speech possibly in the world not
because it's the biggest but because
it's where elite opinion is incubated
and so free speech on twitter matters
and last month elon musk
gave the impression that he planned to
do something about it that he planned to
open up twitter he bought 10 of the
company
now today musk has just put in an offer
to buy 100 of twitter at 54 a share and
take the company private
now from a business perspective this is
a very tempting offer for the company in
fact his offer represents a 54 premium
over the company's share price the day
before he began investing in it he wrote
a letter to twitter's board last night
quote twitter has extraordinary
potential he wrote i will unlock it
so this is more than a business play in
fact it's not an overstatement to say it
could be the single most important
development for free speech in the
modern history of the united states
as musk put it twitter's potential is to
be quote the platform for free speech
around the globe
twitter will quote neither thrive nor
serve the societal imperative in its
current form twitter needs to be
transformed as a private company
musk then made it clear that he has no
confidence whatsoever the people who
currently run twitter including its
pro-censorship ceo
quote if this deal doesn't work given
that i have no confidence in management
or do i believe i can drive the
necessary change in the public market i
would need to reconsider my position as
a shareholder
that means if twitter's board rejects
elon musk's offer they will need to
explain why to their shareholders
they turned down a deal that would make
the shareholders much richer
so by doing this elon musk is putting
everything on the line he knows how
important twitter is to the people who
run our system who run the global system
for them censorship and propaganda are
not a feature of their rule their rule
depends on censorship and propaganda if
you are offering policies that really
benefit nobody but yourself you have to
lie about them and you must prevent
anyone from complaining about it so
censorship and propaganda are at the
very heart of neoliberalism
and elon musk is challenging all of that
directly
he's the richest man in the world he's
not trying to make more money he's not
donating to a foreign charity or
creating a tax shelter for himself at
least in this case he's using his money
to allow at least potentially americans
to speak freely
is it distressing that our own
democratic system isn't working that you
would need some rich guy to swoop in
deus ex machina to save free speech in
the united states of course it is
is it sad that we're all desperate for
elon musk to save us yes it is but who
else is going to save us
nobody at this point
so of course corporate media which
exists to stifle the views of individual
americans hates the idea and their first
move is to mock it watch
he says he wants to pay 54 dollars
twenty cents a share to buy up the rest
of twitter that he doesn't have of
course fifty four twenty that's four
twenty that's a code for marijuana uh
you know which he very much enjoys so is
this all a troll or is this very real
she's so bizarre right i mean the 420
cody and everything is it just a troll
right he's not going to negotiate he
says this is this is my best and final
last and final offer i'm not going to
negotiate here is this just some sort of
game is he doing it for the laws
it can't really be real
well think it through for a second by
challenging the monopoly on speech not
just the united states but globally on
twitter on this central platform for
ideas elon musk is risking everything
that he has these many businesses
intersect with governments around the
world they're not for this they could
crush him for even suggesting it
so he's all in he has to be all in even
to say something like this at twitter
they know he's all in and that's why
they're so upset about it
according to a broomberg before reporter
even before musk's offer today of a
hostile takeover quote the vibe among
workers at twitter is quote super
stressed with employees quote working
together to help each other get through
the week
that's how threatening this is and you
have to ask yourself what kind of
company is twitter
the company's stock just jumped 30
percent that happened when elon musk
first bought in
so obviously this is not a company that
exists to make money this is a company
that exists to censor speech that's its
whole purpose
the body administration certainly
understands this and they've already
made a move to intimidate musk into
backing off
fox businesses charlie gasparine was
reporting tonight that quote as elon
musk offers to buy the rest of twitter a
legal source tells fox business that the
sec and the doj
have launched what he described as a
joint investigation into a myriad of
musk regulatory issues primarily
involving tesla
in other words threaten to allow people
to speak freely and will crush your
businesses
that's third world behavior at the
washington post owned by also one of the
richest people in the world max boot
very much supports stopping elon musk
in fact elon musk tells us must be
silenced in the name of democracy quote
i am frightened by the impact on society
and politics if elon musk acquires
twitter he seems to believe that on
social media anything goes
for democracy to survive we need more
content moderation not less
really
so for democracy to survive the citizens
in the democracy need to talk less need
to express their opinions more guardedly
need to shut up what kind of democracy
are we talking about
it's not democracy as the athenians or
the founders of this country understood
it democracy is a euphemism for letting
our mafia run your country for our
benefit
a
journalism professor called jeff jarvis
explained today on twitter that tyranny
is when the regime can't censor its own
citizens quote today on twitter feels
like the last evening in a berlin
nightclub at the twilight of the weimar
germany in other words you're a nazi if
you're for speaking freely
on twitter
cnbc host joe kernan understands exactly
what's going on
if twitter is opened up that means
people who are paid to censor the public
on twitter will lose their ability
they'll lose their guardianship of free
speech watch this
who's that adl guy andrew this is his
worst nightmare i think jonathan
greenblatt
it's going to be not in the green i mean
if he owns the whole place it's going to
be like go for it i think it's going to
be and and the orange man probably going
to be back and
this is unbelievable
he's exactly right again you can't
overstate what a threat this is not
simply to the people occupying seats of
political power but to the whole
non-profit universe that exists and
thrives and becomes rich supporting them
through censorship and propaganda so a
group like the adl or media matters take
money
in order to censor people they issue
some report calling you a racist and
then social media shuts you down
elon musk is saying no people should be
able to speak freely that would mean the
end
of their control over speech groups like
the adl and media matters
so the media and these non-profit groups
have to stop this before it happens
here's
msnbc telling you that elon musk must be
stopped because he's a bigot he's one of
the most thin skinned people on social
media and this week he tried to come for
senator elizabeth warren
who tweeted let's change the rigged tax
code so that the person of the year will
actually pay taxes and stop freeloading
off everyone else
well elon wasn't happy so he did what he
always did and stomped his little feet
and insulted senator warren calling her
an angry mom and referring to her as
senator karen
so for so many reasons being a
freeloader and a selfish and
disrespectful one and for
misappropriating black vernacular for
misogynistic purposes elon musk is the
absolute worst
[Laughter]
so all of a sudden
the political party that's ex supported
almost exclusively by oligarchs like
jeff bezos and the google guys is
telling you that it's dangerous for rich
people to have too much control over
speech
really
facebook is controlled by one person
mark zuckerberg but that's not a threat
because mark zuckerberg is happy to work
on behalf of the democratic party once
again if anything we are understating
what a big deal this move on twitter by
elon musk is if free speech is restored
to even one big social media platform it
all comes tumbling down
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