Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Monday that a social media platform could not be considered “inclusive or fair” if it discriminates against large swaths of the population.
The woman behind Libs of TikTok — a popular account that draws attention to progressive content — revealed that she had “received about a dozen death threats after radical leftists accused me of being a domestic terrorist extremist” and noted that Twitter had failed to act upon the threats.
Musk asked why — and one user responded by pointing out that “you can be banned for merely criticizing (not even threatening) woke progressives, but they can send conservatives death threats without any repercussions.”
Why? @Twitter
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 14, 2022
“A platform cannot be considered inclusive or fair if it is biased against half the country,” Musk replied.
The comment comes weeks after Musk made an offer to purchase Twitter in its entirety and amid his frustrations with the Democratic Party’s leftward drift. The multibillionaire announced in May that he would favor Republicans in the midterm elections after voting “overwhelmingly for Democrats, historically.”
“I support free speech, but not any one candidate,” Musk explained. “In fact, I gave money to & voted for Hillary & then voted for Biden. However, given unprovoked attacks by leading Democrats against me & a very cold shoulder to Tesla & SpaceX, I intend to vote Republican in November.”
“Like I’m not sure, I might never have voted for a Republican, just to be clear,” Musk said. “Now this election I will.”
Musk has been critical of both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, but he has also condemned Twitter’s decision to remove Trump from the platform.
“Even though I think a less divisive candidate would be better in 2024, I still think Trump should be restored to Twitter,” Musk wrote, later adding: “Biden’s mistake is that he thinks he was elected to transform the country, but actually everyone just wanted less drama.”
As Musk mentioned, the White House has often featured the work of Ford and GM while Tesla — the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer — has been omitted. The snubbing may lie in the fact that Tesla is not unionized, as former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki hinted last year when she was asked why Tesla was not invited to an electric vehicle summit in which Ford and GM participated.
After Biden’s State of the Union speech in March, Musk again called attention to the White House ignoring Tesla, despite its groundbreaking role in the electric vehicle sector.
“Ford is investing $11B to build electric vehicles — creating 11,000 jobs across the country,” a post from Biden’s Twitter account said as the State of the Union speech concluded. “GM is making the largest investment in its history — $7B to build electric vehicles, creating 4,000 jobs in Michigan.”
“Tesla has created over 50,000 US jobs building electric vehicles & is investing more than double GM + Ford combined,” the billionaire entrepreneur responded as an “fyi to person controlling this twitter.”
Musk has also expressed concern over the national debt when arguing that Congress should not approve Biden’s domestic spending agenda. “I would say can this bill, don’t pass it. That’s my recommendation,” Musk said of the Build Back Better Act. “If this bill happens or doesn’t happen, we don’t think about it at all really. Honestly it might be better if the bill doesn’t pass.”