Elon Musk and the Limits of Free Speech

How Elon Musk’s social media tirades are challenging global leaders and redefining the boundaries of free expression

THE RECENT seemingly eccentric and uncalled for comments by X’s owner Elon Musk against global leaders and governments, has once again brought the issue of setting the limits for Freedom of Expression, as per the democratic and decency norms of the society, not as dictated by an individual.

As if the new American President-elect, Donald Trump was not enough to handle for the world, now the world also has the tech czar Elon Musk, to deal with.

Musk, who seems to have been moulded from the same mould as that of Trump, is becoming an incessant irritation to global leaders and politicians, due to his social media barbs targeted at different countries.

This leads us to wonder, who gave Musk the right to criticise one and everyone? Being a tech czar does not entitle you to be the font of resentment on any global issue.

The latest Musk tirade was targeted against the British prime minister and King Charles III, whom he has advised to shutdown Parliament and call for a new election.

Elon Musk’s support for dissolving Parliament in the UK has led to backlash from officials, who criticised his understanding of local issues.
Apparently, the Tesla boss endorsed a social media post criticising the government’s handling of criminal gang investigations in Manchester.

“In the UK, serious crimes such as rape require the Crown Prosecution Service’s approval for the police to charge suspects. Who was the head of the CPS when rape gangs were allowed to exploit young girls without facing justice? Keir Starmer, 2008 -2013,” Musk posted on his social media platform X on New Year’s Day.

In the UK, serious crimes such as rape require the Crown Prosecution Service’s approval for the police to charge suspects.

Who was the head of the CPS when rape gangs were allowed to exploit young girls without facing justice?

Keir Starmer, 2008 -2013

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 2, 2025

“The King must step in. We can’t have Keir heading the country, while he was the one heading the Crown Prosecution Service [CPS] while all this was happening,” he added in the thread.

Musk’s involvement has obviously drawn expected criticism from the Labour Party. Responding to his comments, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said they were “misjudged and certainly misinformed.”

Labour Minister Andrew Gwynne echoed the sentiment during an interview with LBC radio, “Elon Musk is an American citizen and perhaps ought to focus on issues on the other side of the Atlantic.”

Musk, who was born in South Africa but is also a naturalised US citizen, has also been known for getting involved in US politics and was a prominent part of Trump’s presidential campaign, though earlier he was a vehement critic of Donald Trump, yet apparently, he changed heart and sides during the presidential campaign and donated close to 277 million dollars to Trump’s campaign.

Since then, he has become an appendage to Trump and rents a villa at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago retreat, which gives him the chance to drop in at Trump’s residence whenever he chooses. To counter his growing closeness and criticism to it, last month Trump refuted claims that he had “ceded the presidency” to Musk.

UK politicians are not alone in being the target of Musk’s increasingly eccentric interventions. He has described Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany as a “fool” and the country’s head of state, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as “an anti-democratic tyrant”. He has also called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada “an insufferable tool” who “won’t be in power for much longer”.

He also mocked Ukrainian President Zelensky after a Trump-Putin spat. Apart from commenting on the US government’s Visa policy and other issues.

Meanwhile Trump’s latest social media comments criticised the UK government’s decision to increase taxes on oil and gas firms working in the North Sea, in part to help fund renewable energy.

On Trump-owned platform, Truth Social, Trump responded to a report about a US oil firm leaving the region, saying:

“The UK is making a very big mistake. Open up the North Sea. Get rid of Windmills!”

BBC’s Diplomatic correspondent, James Landale rightly wonders whether this was merely a familiar defence of a US firm by Trump and a repetition of his pro-fossil fuel instincts? Or was it evidence of a greater willingness by the president-elect to intervene in an ally’s own domestic policies?

Landale goes on to say that the main difference – four years on – is that Trump is no longer alone at the keyboard; his increasingly powerful fellow traveller, Elon Musk, is even more prolific, using his own platform, X, to attack the British government across the board. He has criticised its handling of last summer’s riots, the running of the economy and now especially its attitude towards child abuse scandals.

Landale says that British politicians cannot stem these posts from across the Atlantic. But they can control their reaction. During Trump’s first term, governments – and news desks – learned to pause and take a moment before responding to – or reporting – the latest electronic missives from the White House.

Thus far the Conservatives have chosen to engage with and echo Musk’s agenda. The party leader, Kemi Badenoch, said a full national inquiry into organised grooming gangs was “long overdue”.

In another article BBC’s Marianna Spring says that ever since he acquired the social media site two years ago, Elon Musk has hailed Twitter as a bastion for freedom of expression. But over the course of 2024, X, as it is now called, has evolved from what felt like a communal town square into a polarised hub where views and posts seem even more controversial.

Certain profiles that have shared misleading takes on politics and the news, are some of which have been accused of triggering hate, and have recently shot to prominence.

Marianna very aptly says that all this matters because X might not have as many users as some other major social media sites, but it does seem to have a significant impact on political discussions. Not only is it a place where certain high-profile politicians, governments and police forces share statements and views – but now its owner Mr Musk has directly aligned himself with Donald Trump, a relationship that could redefine how the bosses of other social media giants deal with the next US President.

During the last two years of Musk’s ownership of X, people notices that it has become a sort of a hate platform, on which users with right-wing or extreme right-wing leanings are given more freedom to criticise their opponents, in the name of freedom of expression.

This also leads to another pertinent question that can you by virtue of ownership try to throttle the sentiments and voice of people who do not agree with you? Who has given you this right. X in its replies to different government and international bodies like EU has stuck to its now too old version that, “[X] strives to be the town square of the internet by promoting and protecting freedom of expression.”

Given the latest salvos by Musk, the common social media user is bound to stand against his personal philosophy dominating the social media platform, as it certainly contains the seeds of hate or forcing one-sided views, which was not the intention of its creators and neither bodes well for the platform.

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