I can't speak for "the left", but he went from someone I respected for his contributions to... not that, not because of his views on free speech, but because he started publicly acting like an asshole on a regular basis.

Is firing people for dunking on their CEO what passes for free speech now? Or do you mean firing people for having different political opinions from the CEO?

> Elon has gone from being the hero of the left to the villain for daring to allow free speech.

I don't know if Elon Musk was ever "the hero of the left", or any tech executive for that matter? He definitely has his fans (among techies mostly), but you would be hard pressed for any hardcore leftist to see a CEO as their hero. The whole pedo thai diver incident turn even many left-leaning (and unaligned, and right-leaning) techies from pro to neutral or even negative.

Nobody in the comment chain was talking about left-wing vs. right-wing ideology. I get that Musk is a partisan figure now, but this thread isn't going to get any better by turning it into yet another ideological battle.

> It’s one of the most left leaning tech companies.

Personally I consider it meaningless metric since almost all American tech companies are left-leaning, for various reasons.