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Comment by AlexandrB | Hacker News Reader

To quote Musk's Tweet[1] on the topic:

> If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill.

> No limit.

> Please let us know.

Now "unfairly treated" leaves some wiggle room, but the obvious implication here is that if you get "unfairly" fired for Tweeting something Musk will fund your legal bills. Why would he make this offer if he did not believe that you should have freedom to say (Tweet) things your employer hates without retribution such as getting laid off?

[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1688022163574439937

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"On this platform".

That's not circulating grievances/politics on a company's internal channels.

How are we confusing these two?

First of all, let's dispense with the notion that "on twitter" actually matters, given the man is so petty that he canceled a dude's Tesla order over a tweet that criticized him.

Anyway:

"grievances/politics"

It came out that he paid a $250,000 settlement for a sexual harassment suit and he decided to respond to this by making jokes on twitter, quote: “Hi Chad, long time no see! Fine, if you touch my wiener, you can have a horse.”

Can we not act like this is "politics"? This is about the basic decency people should expect from any employer.

Wow, that Twitter quote is crazy. Can you imagine any other CEO (or C-suite) for a major corp writing the same thing? They would be instantly fired. You see it on Wall Street frequently for much less, and at all ranks of employees. After many costly sexual harassment lawsuits against Wall Street banks, the culture has changed significantly in the last 20 years.

Intentionally is my guess.

It’s not confusion it’s a comparison. The other commenter is trying to highlight Musk’s cognitive dissonance.

On the one hand, he wants to support “free speech” on his platform (being able to say what you want _publicly_ and not get fired).

On the other, his employees are getting fired for things they are saying internally. Obviously less of a moral crime, but one speech he is okay with squashing because it’s criticism of him.

So given these two situations, what is Musk’s definition of “free speech”? A value he claims to hold very dearly and earnestly, but also tramples if it’s speech he doesn’t like.

Because literally every company in existence would think that employees publicly airing their grievances about their employer on Twitter is strictly less of a problem than on the company's internal channels.

If you think people should be legally protected for anything they say publicly on Twitter, then you should also believe they should be legally protected for anything they say in company internal channels. Anything else is incoherent.

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