The Empire Strikes Musk

(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

The Establishment turned on Elon Musk in 2022.

First, Musk started making noise about freedom of speech. Then Musk, a lifelong Democrat, announced that he would be voting Republican. Then he bought Twitter and revealed just how corrupt the social media companies were, and how deeply involved Western governments have been in suppressing speech.

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If you go back through the news over the past two years, you will see a steady stream of threats made by US and European government officials–elected and administrative–towards Musk. They made it very clear that he either gets on board with their agenda or the West’s governments would destroy him.

Last week, I wrote about one case of the Biden Administration’s weaponization of government against Musk. Today I have the displeasure of reporting that the European Union is trying to shut down Twitter/X due to its nefarious practice of not policing speech harshly enough.

The charge is that Twitter/X is enabling the spread of (the wrong kind of) misinformation–which basically means allowing dissent from the misinformation that the European Union governments and corporations regularly spread.

Governments that promote the idea that people with penises are women, that the COVID jab was safe and would prevent infection and transmission of the COVID-19 virus, and that “diversity is our strength” are dropping a ton of bricks on Musk’s company because, well, they can. Twitter is the one social media company that refuses to bend the knee to the Establishment, so it must be destroyed.

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Think about this: TikTok is destroying America’s youth and is a Chinese propaganda tool, yet the powers that be seem fine with that. Facebook and Instagram spread child sexual abuse materials, and yet they are good corporate citizens. Facilitating the abuse of children is no big deal, but allowing people to speak their minds on public health, political issues, or gender issues is beyond the pale and must be stopped at all costs.

It is impossible to overstate how important destroying Musk is to the censorious in government–the people whose job is to maintain the power of the elite rather than get things done. The people who would rather let hundreds of thousands of Americans have no internet access than allow Musk to provide it.

Ironically, one of Musk’s only real assets in defending himself against the bureaucrats’ and politicians’ attacks is that NASA and the military rely on Musk’s SpaceX to access space. Musk’s billions protect him less than his monopoly on affordable launch services. Still, the politicians pour tens of billions into their preferred contractors–those who kiss their rings.

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The military, though, actually needs to get things done occasionally. And NASA, by now, knows that ULA will never give them affordable launch capabilities. Boeing can’t even make a space capsule anymore.

Twitter, though, is a different matter.–as is Tesla, ironically. Both of them have been relentlessly subjected to disparagement and threats from the Biden Administration, the Democrats, and now the EU.

It’s about playing ball with the big boys. They think Musk has gotten too big for his britches, so he must be cut down to size. Allowing Musk to provide a small space for freedom in a vast sea of conformity and propaganda cannot be allowed.

I have been expecting the EU to make this move for quite a while. They have been trying to rein Musk in for over a year–hoping they can get him to buckle to their censorship demands. They have used every tool they have short of trying to shut him down, and now they are trying to shut him down, at least in Europe.

It will be an epic battle, and knowing who will be hurt worse in the coming battle is hard. The EU has the power and the tools to harm Twitter/X, but European citizens are turning sour on the European experiment. They see that “diversity” is not Europe’s strength, are appalled at the excesses of the climate change fanatics, and are literally shooting manure at government buildings in disgust at the EU’s determination to eliminate food production.

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Attacking free speech in this environment may seem a no-brainer to European bureaucrats, but the political environment is more volatile than they think.

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