 Yesterday on the program we talked about how billionaire Elon Musk didn't like the way that Twitter was being run So he decided to just buy it Very normal and healthy society that we live in folks But you know in doing so he single-handedly saved freedom of speech in the United States You see we didn't have freedom of speech on Sunday But on Monday when this one billionaire decided to buy a social media platform That's when freedom of speech Returned to the United States and it's it's a beautiful site folks And if you're skeptical as to whether or not he actually cares and is committed to the principle of freedom of speech Well, he took the Twitter after the news broke to assure his critics that they still will indeed be welcome on the platform saying I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter because that is what free speech means sounds great But what he says is very different than what he does in fact his actions don't line up with the rhetoric that he's espousing here and It's really frustrating that you know what I'm seeing at least from normie discourse is that this really is about freedom of speech And this is a victory for freedom of speech, but this isn't about freedom of speech This is about a billionaire consolidating the power that he already has and making himself even more powerful and Influencing culture even more likely to the benefit of his many businesses But if you are convinced that he really does care about freedom of speech Well, there's a story that media I had reminded us of that shows that Elon Musk does not care about freedom of speech In fact, he's one of the most petty people in the country and this is a billionaire He doesn't have to be petty. He can have any hobby. He wants to do whatever he wants, but he's one of the most petty people Ever now we talked on the show yesterday about this and I brought up how he canceled the Tesla order of a blogger Who was simply mean to him? But this story proves that Elon Musk does not give a damn about freedom of speech because he actually Harassed and bullied one individual off of Twitter completely because this person was a journalist who chose To hold Tesla and Elon Musk in particular accountable So media aides Michael Luciano explains Lawrence Fosse was working as a portfolio manager in Manhattan at the time That Monday would have been an otherwise unremarkable day at the office But for a phone call from an irate and litigious Elon Musk a colleague relayed the billionaire's message Elon Musk says you're a very bad person and you're writing bad things about him Fosse recalled the colleague explaining He's going to have to sue you and he's going to have to drag your boss into it Fosse was incredulous, but quickly realized this was no office prank The CEO of Tesla Motors had actually called his office and threatened to make his life miserable by threatening Litigation so keep in mind this was back in 2018 So what exactly did Fosse do to have Elon Musk himself make a phone call to Fosse's manager and threaten litigation? well He was critical of Elon Musk his offense He criticized Elon Musk online beginning in 2015 He wrote dozens of articles critical of Tesla on the popular crowdsourced finance site seeking alpha I would take a close look at its financial statements and write about things that struck me as wrong He explained writing under the nom de plume Montana skeptic Fosse dissected company filings and provided wonkish Analysis to make the bear case against Tesla which did not respond to a request for comment on this story He penned dozens of missives, but some stand out more than others Fosse wrote He believed at Tesla overstated its profits and papered over losses in its statements He also wondered if Tesla was hoodwinking Nevada in its deal with the state to make its electric vehicle batteries there Another time he questioned Tesla's claims about the safety of its vehicles in another piece Fosse declared New York State Had gotten a raw deal after investing nearly one billion in a factory for Tesla to build solar panels as part of its solar energy business Fosse was also active on Twitter using the Montana skeptic moniker and tweeted links to his articles as well as other thoughts about Tesla and Musk Eventually one protest the online sleuth outed him as the man behind the accounts on Twitter and seeking alpha a little more than a week Later Fosse said that's when Musk rang his boss. What especially irked him was Musk's first line of recourse He had never once attempted to contact me to say I think you got something wrong in your article factually Fosse said He didn't email me or have anybody from Tesla do that whenever I discovered I had made errors I would always correct them in the article up front in a note that was prominent and make note of my error So in the end what happened was Fosse was successfully Silenced by Elon Musk because Elon Musk called Fosse's manager will care and move by the way and Threaten them with a lawsuit and even if Elon Musk had no legal ground to stand on still Fosse decided It wasn't worth it to put my employer through this because even if we can win this lawsuit That's a lot of money for legal fees up front, right? It costs money to defend yourself even if you're in the right So rather than putting his employer through that he just pledged to stop criticizing Elon Musk and also he deleted the Twitter account associated with this moniker that he had and then Elon Musk left them alone That's the pro free speech Elon Musk Very very pro speech of him to bully a journalist into silence unbelievable Now the thing about these types of lawsuits is you know These companies they throw their weight around knowing that the person who they're punching down on doesn't have sufficient money To actually defend themselves in court something similar happened to me not of course as as drastic But I played a 30-second clip from CBS news back in like 2016 2017 And it was a Donald Trump interview I feel like the interview that this outlet published with our president was important so it was it was obviously fair use I was using it for discussion and CBS news they decided to do a copyright strike shut down the video I appealed as I usually do and I said this is fair use it meets the criteria of fair use I believe in good faith that my assessment is valid and they simply responded by saying we disagree and our legal team We're willing to go to court to settle this matter And so what did I have to do? I had to back down because yeah, I know that I'm in the right I know that my use of a 30-second clip of the president in a news video is going to fall under the criteria of fair use But I don't have the money to defend myself in court So it's an automatic dub for them and this is what billionaires do they throw their weight around This is what very powerful institutions in the US do they throw their weight around and they silence their critics So if you think that this is about freedom of speech I've got a bridge to sell you because this is about Elon Musk Consolidating his power Imagine if Elon Musk was petty enough to call the manager of somebody who wrote mean articles about him And they weren't even necessarily mean they were Journalistic articles looking at the financials of this major company who's getting tax subsidies So that's a public good But I mean if Elon Musk was petty enough to do that Imagine what he can now do on Twitter if some journalist with a million of followers is overly critical of Elon Musk He could simply Thanos snap them out of existence like that and they're gone that major platform Which they use to get out the word about their journalistic work Can be gone like that and it's not just silencing journalists I mean what Elon Musk can do is suppress all of the Competitors to Tesla and he says that he's not going to do that. He'll make the algorithm open source but Does anyone actually believe that he'll follow through with all this does anyone believe that he'll be incredibly transparent about Twitter if He's not transparent about a company like Tesla which makes him lots and lots of money It made him a billionaire literally so I mean this is not About freedom of speech. This is about corporate consolidation billionaires getting more Power and using their wealth to basically take over society and look Elon Musk and this Twitter issue It's a microcosm of a bigger issue as good politics guy pointed out on Twitter billionaire Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post Billionaire John Henry owns the Boston Globe billionaire Sheldon Adelson owns the Las Vegas Review Journal billionaire Loreen Powell owns the Atlantic Billionaire Patrick soon shiung owns the Los Angeles Times billionaire Mark Benioff owns time I mean in our society billionaires effectively control all major media outlets and as a result They literally are able to warp our view of the world We see the world through their lens and that's not to say that like these outlets are always going to be bad Right, I mean the Washington Post has a couple of good journalists there Taylor Lorenz Jeff Stein These are good people who do good work, but when it comes to any story related to Amazon or unionization or worker rights I think you have to be a lot more skeptical knowing that they have a heavy Disincentive to talk about things that their owner doesn't like and it's not just what they talk about and how they cover certain stories It's what they choose to not cover, right? So billionaires are taking control of our society and this is kind of a predictable outcome in a capitalist system We're currently in a late-stage capitalist hellscape, but this was always the trajectory If you don't try to reign in capitalism with at least some regulations and controls This is the inevitable outcome and that's what we're seeing here So this isn't about freedom of speech by any means. This is about Elon Musk using Twitter to his advantage However, he sees fit if you think this is about freedom of speech Congratulations, you've been duped by a billionaire