Three Tweets That Capture The Entire Elon Musk Free Speech Con
from the a-story-in-three-acts dept
We’ve spent years calling out what a hypocrite Elon Musk is on free speech. But sometimes the universe Elon hands you a gift: three tweets in the span of a little over a week that demonstrate the entire con more clearly than any deep dive ever could. Let’s start with this one:
That’s Elon announcing that:
Falsely labeling non-violent people as “fascist” or “Nazi” should be treated as incitement to murder
Which is, to be clear, an extreme anti-free speech position. It’s an extremely censorial stance.
Yes, free speech allows you to refer to someone as a Nazi. As the ACLU has written: there’s no such thing as a right not to be called a Nazi. There are plenty of legal cases where this has been made clear by judges. Here’s just one:
Statements indicating a political opponent is a Nazi or coward are “odious and repugnant” and far too common in today’s political discourse. But they are not actionable defamation “because of the tremendous imprecision of the meaning and usage of such terms in the realm of political debate.” In other words, being called a Nazi or coward are not verifiable statements of fact that would support a defamation claim
So, already, we see that Elon is taking an anti-free speech stance with that tweet. Political hyperbole, even of the Nazi-calling variety, is protected speech. Always has been.
Now keep that tweet in mind as we head into the next one.
Because over the weekend… Elon Musk pretty clearly falsely called the EU Commission (which just fined him)… Nazis.
If you can’t see that, it’s Elon retweeting someone who posted an image of the EU flag being pulled back to reveal a Nazi flag. The original poster says “The Fourth Reich” and Elon’s quote tweet says: “Pretty much.”
So, let’s recap: falsely calling non-violent people Nazis is, according to Elon, “incitement to murder” and yet here he is… falsely calling non-violent people Nazis. Just a week after that original statement.
And then there’s the third act that ties it all together. I know he’s said this one before in similar forms, but this weekend he also claimed that the “Surefire way to figure out who the bad guys are is by looking who wants to restrict freedom of speech.”
So, uh, yeah. Just a week after Elon says that labeling a non-violent person a Nazi should be considered “incitement to murder” (an inherent attempt to suppress speech of critics), he claims that the easiest way to figure out who are “the bad guys” is to see who wants to suppress speech.
According to Elon’s own standard: he is the bad guy. He is saying that we should suppress speech of those who call him a Nazi. And therefore, he is a bad guy. By his own logic.
The pattern is obvious. Elon’s entire incoherent “free speech” framework collapses into a single, coherent principle: speech I like is protected, speech I don’t like should be punished. He wants the freedom to call the EU Commission Nazis. He wants to criminalize anyone who calls him one. He proclaims that those who restrict speech are “the bad guys” while simultaneously arguing that calling him a Nazi should be treated as incitement to murder—a severe restriction on speech. And when he or his allies do actual Nazi-like things? Well, you better not mention it, or you’re inciting violence.
This is what happens when someone who has never understood the actual principles of free speech tries to cosplay as a free speech absolutist. The mask doesn’t just slip—it falls off entirely, and all that’s left is the naked self-interest underneath.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, defamation, elon musk, eu, free speech, hypocrisy, hypocrite, incitement, nazi
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Comments on “Three Tweets That Capture The Entire Elon Musk Free Speech Con”
You are too friendly
It didn’t “fall off”. Musk never was sober enough to have it meet his face instead of just free-falling. And time is running out before the leopards up the ante.
Re: Never understood or never cared about principles of free speech?
Linus Torvald calls Musk too stupid to do tech. But he isn’t too stupid to deliberately lie. Knowing that our current mainstream media will not call him out on it, he lies shamelessly by pretending to support all free speech, knowing full well that he actually only supports free speech for those who agree with him. He only gets away with the extreme free speech cosplay because the media treats his cartoonish costume like it’s an Armani suit.
The record can easily support this explanation as much as it can support the lack of understanding explanation. I choose to not give him the “benefit” of the doubt.
Re: Re:
how can we have the media stop calling him a free speech absolutist. and instead remark on his censorships in every article
Ironically, I’d actually dispute this. There are indeed a lot of poorly chosen usages of the terms, but they’re not all imprecise and many are verifiable according to several academic definitions.
When I call Trump or Musk a fascist, I’m referencing my knowledge of Eco, Britt, and other standards covered in academia on the subject. We can check off the list of criteria easily. It’s not loose wording. It’s not a substitute for “people I don’t like” or “people I disagree with politically.” Not everyone I disagree with is a fascist. Every fascist is a person I disagree with. If the Hugo Boss fits, then it’s an accurate term.
Ironically people claiming that calling a fascist a fascist is defamation are twisting the meaning of the word defamation to mean “label I don’t like,” rather than “intentionally maliciously untrue label.” And more often, fascists are anti-intellectuals so they don’t even understand what fascism is academically speaking, so they’re not in a position to dispute if the definition is accurate.
Motherfucker gonna sieg heil and endorse great replacement theory and then get mad when people call him a nazi.
Re:
Don’t forget about disowning his transgender child! Even some not-so-extreme conservatives actually try to evolve past their bullshit beliefs if they have a trans child, but Elon went so far to the right that he literally refers to his transgender daughter as a “murderer” because she “killed” the son he wanted to have.
Speaking of which: Elon’s obsession with eugenics is also a sure sign of Nazism.
Re: Re:
I mean, just look at how Elon treated another of his kids shortly after the insurance CEO got shot, when all of a sudden Elon became a huge fan of having his little kid near him as much as possible for reasons which I’m sure had nothing to do with trying to use the kid as a human shield.
It’s pretty clear his kids are just another possession to him just like any other object in his mind, and if an object breaks and is no longer doing what it’s supposed to why not just cast it aside and replace it?
Re: Re: Eugenics, I know you know this
Go back to the late 1800’s and look at all the USA Rich persons that Jumped on that Bandwagon…
Once all that FAKED Sci books to back them up were made…IT WAS MONSTEROUS.
I might still have one, 1888, has Subjects like Gay Birthing.
Re:
“Just because I’m in the NSDAP and SS it doesn’t make me a Nazi.”
If not Nazi, why Nazi shaped?
Re:
Also walks and quacks like a Nazi.
Re: Re:
Ouch, you beat me by minutes.
To paraphrase :
“If it looks like a NAZI, and quacks like a NAZI, and goosesteps like a NAZI; it’s probably a NAZI.”
So it’s fine to label the violent [ICE] bastards & bitches [and their bosses] as fascists & Nazis. Got it!
Gross
“…and all that’s left is the naked self-interest underneath.”
We definitely don’t want to see anything about Musk naked.
sometimes i wonder if the ketamine fried his brain to the point the only “functional” thing remaining is his ego that or hes just a lying hypocrite…eh most likely both
Less self-awareness than a newborn
And the real kicker is that if you showed him his own tweets I’ve no doubt whatsoever that he would not be able to connect the dots, because in his demented brain the people calling someone who did the nazi salute twice in front of a crowd a ‘nazi’ were clearly wrong and should be silenced whereas him agreeing that a governmental body is comprised of nazi’s because they dared issue a fine over multiple violation of a law he supported is clearly right because what’s more nazi like than fines?
He thought that if he made enough money, the girls would like him. He found out the wrong kind of girls like him now. The guy’s entire life is a train wreck in slow motion. He blows up rockets while shouting ‘look at me!’.
Sticks and stones may break ,,,,,
Ya ya, we know.
But when Fact fits, why dont we follow thru?
We dont like Certain types of People, Why not ship them out?
Technocrats shocked to learn Nazi's came from Europe
There’s this bizarro behavior from technocrats where they both want to create this National Socialist European Union which restricts free speech, literally reviving the Nazi’s, while complains that anyone critical of them for doing this and restricting others freedom’s are “fascists”.
These technocrats are well aware that the discussion is dependent on controlling this narrative and purposely destroying reason/logic, and honestly think you’re just too stupid to understand their 4d chess game of using useful idiots to do their battles for them. The amazing part is technocrats are obsessed with censorship and banning any opposing opinion as “racist” or “bigoted” or just label it all “hate speech”, and if they’re lucky, their opponents will just be arrested and disappear. So much easier to deal with your political opponents if they can’t say anything, right?
But in the end, none of this matters. EU doesn’t produce anything, and like the Nazi Reich before you, you’ll lose any conflict with Russia cause unlike your propaganda, no one in Europe actually wants to die for your cause.
Elon Musk’s Free Speech Claims: Questions That Expose the Contradiction
It’s hard to read this breakdown and not step back to ask a simple question: if Elon Musk truly believes in free speech, why do his own statements contradict the very standard he claims to defend?
How can “calling someone a Nazi” be incitement to murder one week, yet a tool he casually uses against the EU the next? And if, as he says, “the bad guys” are the people who try to restrict speech, what does it mean when he openly argues that critics should be silenced?
At what point do we acknowledge that this isn’t a philosophy at all, but a pattern—one where free speech is upheld only when it flatters him and condemned when it challenges him?
And perhaps the most important question: how do these contradictions affect the larger conversation about free expression, platform governance, and the public’s ability to hold powerful individuals accountable?
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If the standard changes based on who is speaking, is it even a standard anymore?
Re:
You are the second-worst Mason I have ever seen in the Techdirt comments.
Re: Its
Called Drugs. Look at his Trump friend.
Re: Re: Deflecting From the Issue Doesn’t Address the Contradiction
Blaming it on “drugs” avoids the real issue. The post isn’t about personal habits or associations; it’s about documented statements and clear contradictions in his own words. The logic stands regardless of who his friends are.
Yeah, people who are child raping, murderers get killed.