Elon Musk free speech absolutism update
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Elon and JD Vance asserting that flagrant racism expressed a few months ago should not be disqualifying for an employee hired to poke around in the personal data of people with no legal authorization is what the Trump administration’s opposition to “DEI” is actually about, and thinking it can be a vehicle for addressing your pet peeve about particular counterproductive corporate slide decks or whatever is just useful idiocy at this point.
Speaking of useful idiocy, anybody who asserted that Musk has ever been any kind of serious advocate for “free speech” bears some responsibility for what he’s doing now:
Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), suggested that The Wall Street Journal reporter responsible for uncovering a DOGE employee’s racist tweets should be fired on Friday.
In a story published on Thursday, the Journal‘s Katherine Long revealed that a “key DOGE staff member who gained access to the Treasury Department’s central-payments system resigned Thursday after he was linked to a deleted social-media account that advocated racism and eugenics.”
This is what Peter Thiel and his tech cronies actually think about “free speech,” i.e. negative stories about them should be a fireable offense if not illegal. And this has long been obvious.
Related: what Musk/Trump/Vance actually think constitutes “merit”:
new video up on trump's war on "DEI" youtu.be/aPExCDMJs-Q
[image or embed]— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) February 6, 2025 at 4:16 AM