Judging Freedom - Musk's Free Speech Victory

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

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Oh, what an exciting day today is. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, April 25, 2022. It's about 3.20 in the afternoon Eastern time. The former president of the United States of America who was kicked off of Twitter was held in contempt by a court today, and Twitter has a new owner. Elon Musk has come to an agreement with the Twitter board to purchase enough shares of Twitter so that he will control it. He has raised, through his own liquid assets and his own borrowing power and his own pledging power, $46 billion, with a B, which will immediately go. Well, as soon as the deal is, is reduced to writing,

which will go very soon to the Twitter board and the shares of the Twitter board holds. Now, if you own stock in Twitter, he's not buying your stock. He's buying what's called treasury stock. That is stock that the company owns. He's not buying 100% of Twitter stock. He's buying slightly more than 50% of Twitter stock, which is, of course, all you need to control a corporation. But once the deal is done, and assuming the SEC, the Security and Exchange Commission, doesn't interfere with it, and there doesn't seem to be a reason that they would unless they hate him politically,

which of course is an improper, though not unknown, motivation for the government, Elon Musk will own and control Twitter. The share price of Twitter will undoubtedly rise tomorrow morning when the markets reopen as a result of this because of the general enthusiasm and exuberation that somebody as aggressive and open as he is wants to take this platform and expand it. There's been a lot of dispute about Twitter's algorithm. What is the computer program that decides Donald Trump should be banned and somebody else should not? Or a particular tweet has to be kicked off, but another similar tweet not. Musk says he'll make that algorithm public so that everybody who is harmed by a Twitter decision can see for it themselves how the decision was made and challenge it. Mr. Musk, I want to hear those challenges. I want to be your chief content officer because like you, I am a free speech absolutist. All innocuous speech is absolutely protected, and all speech is innocuous when there is time for more speech to rebut it. That's the Supreme Court's most recent and most definitive

pronouncement on the nature of free speech, and I welcome it and I embrace it. And I also, all those who love freedom should welcome and embrace what you're doing. I know a lot of people are unhappy because they view you as, well, nobody really knows what your politics are, but you're not a hardcore lefty. And a lot of the people on the left are rejoiced in Twitter kicking Donald Trump off and suppressing other similar like-minded speech, rejoiced in Twitter kicking Donald Trump off and suppressing other similar like-minded speech rejoiced in what Twitter did, and now they lament that they may actually have to confront ideas that they despise with other ideas. That's the essence of free speech. You don't confront a bad idea or a hated idea or an offensive idea with silence.

You confront it with more speech. And by the way, and I know you know this, Mr. Musk, there is no right not to be offended. But there is the right to challenge the speech of the offender. Congratulations. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.