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Comment by enumjorge | Hacker News Reader

It’s amazing to me that people really think someone like Musk would a good steward of free speech. This idea that the obscenely wealthy are going to come in and save us from ourselves, if only we can let them be in charge, is a tale as old as time, yet people keep believing it.

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Didn't he also try to shut down a Twitter bot that publishes flights of his private jet?

I also recall him firing people who supported unionization and employees who talked to reporters.

Yup. He's also removed people from Tesla beta programs if they say anything negative about the company. He's also accused people of being pedophiles for saying negative things about them- going so far as hiring people to try and prove the baseless accusations.

Elon is not a free speech advocate. He'll pretend to be occasionally, but that's not the same thing.

If by "tried to shut down" you mean "offered the kid running it $5,000 to stop" then sure.

But the way you spin it is way worse than what actually happened.

The obscenely wealthy control it now. He would be a much better steward of free speech than they are, that much is obvious. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

I would like to know on what basis this is objectively true rather than subjectively. If he's a better choice, surely you can defend it.

How would he be better? Is he just your preferred asshole?

I don’t see anything in his tweeting patterns to give me any sense that he’d be an improvement.

His tweeting patterns reflect free speech ideals. I'm surprised you don't see that. He's also one of the ACLU's biggest donors.

Maybe you're the first to derive high-minded ideals from `Delete the w in twitter?`

Elon Musk IS the richest man in the world right now, there is nobody more wealthy than him.

The current "stewards of free speech" on Twitter appear to be from the military-industrial complex (recalling when Twitter implied "undermining faith in NATO" is a bannable offence, since confirmed, and unironically citing ASPI as an "independent source" on which accounts to ban), so I personally view an eccentric oligarch as an upgrade.

Of course, he might just continue this trend.

It seems like a “bad king, good king” argument when the problem is that maybe a monarchy isn’t that great in the first place .

The current regime is not a monarchy (who do you think the "king" is...?), it's a shadowy extension of the MIC, apparently with the primary purpose of monitoring and managing narratives of importance to them.

I meant it as an analogy. My point is, a better person at the wheel won’t fix a systemic problem.

Elon Musk isn’t an oligarch that word has a specific meaning

"Our billionaires, their oligarchs. Our trade associations, their cartels. Our corporate lobbying, their corruption..."

Some people like to define oligarch to mean "non-American billionaire" but I personally don't. Musk has a lot of de facto political influence.

Even if you don't think he is one right now, he would certainly become one after owning the platform that censored the sitting POTUS.

Just a different kind of strongman political fantasy.

Do you have a counter-proposal?

Why would he need a counter proposal?

> This idea that the obscenely wealthy are going to come in and save us from ourselves, if only we can let them be in charge, is a tale as old as time, yet people keep believing it.

This sentence implies that we are being duped and should not let such people be in charge.

I’m wondering what GP would have us do instead. It’s unhelpful to make an observation about what someone should not do if it’s not obvious what would be better to do.

As if the current board of directors were “ourselves” when they are nothing but rich people just like musk, just a left wing political leaning.

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