Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter.
Musk — the electric car tycoon who infamously predicted “probably close to zero new cases” of COVID-19 in the U.S. by the end of April 2020 — is somehow the richest person on the planet, with an estimated net worth of $268.8 billion.*
- Although it’s clear that Musk doesn’t have well-conceived plans for Twitter, he says he wants more ”free speech.” Contextually, this doesn’t make any sense at all. But it seems like what he has in mind is more hate speech, more encouragement of violence, more anti-science conspiracy propaganda, and maybe even more Donald Trump.
- Like other social media giants, Twitter owns enormous amounts of data about what Americans and people around the world think, buy, and do. This data can be deployed to further propaganda, alter behavior, advance political agendas, shape the culture, and impact the economy.
- Isn’t Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg all the proof we need that it’s a terrible idea to have out-of-touch billionaires controlling popular communications platforms and all their data?
Add your name if you agree:
We can’t leave critical things like free speech and democracy up to the whims of egotistical billionaires. Elon Musk must not be permitted to take over Twitter.
Add your name now.
Thank you for taking action.
For progress,
- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
*That’s according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires list. If there are so many billionaires whose fortunes are increasing so rapidly that there’s a “need” to track their wealth in real time, our priorities as a society may be out of whack.
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