Elon Musk‘s decision not to join Twitter’s board has dashed conservative hopes that the billionaire CEO could help push their agenda of ensuring the platform has less censorship and creates more free speech policies.
Musk, the world’s wealthiest person and a vocal critic of Twitter’s handling of free speech issues and banned accounts, appeared poised to shake up the social media giant after joining the board and buying 9.2% of the company last week.
Since buying a large share of Twitter’s stock April 4, which made the Tesla and SpaceX CEO the platform’s largest shareholder, Musk had promised “significant improvements” to the company and expressed excitement at joining the board.
The reason for Musk’s U-turn on the board seat is not clear, but conservatives fear that their hopes of being censored less on the platform will be significantly diminished without Musk as a board member.
“Goodbye to hopes of ending Twitter’s biased censorship practices?” Alan Tonelson, a right-leaning blogger and trade expert, said on Twitter shortly after Musk announced he wasn’t joining the board.
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Conservatives often cite prominent examples of anti-Republican or conservative bias on Big Tech platforms, including former President Donald Trump’s widespread social media bans, the suppression on Twitter of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden before the 2020 election, and the many famous conservatives who have been suspended or kicked off Twitter for flouting the platform’s content moderation policies.
Well-known conservatives such as firebrand GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado said last week that the first step Musk should take as a Twitter board member is to restore free speech policies to the platform and allow former President Donald Trump to return from his suspension.
Republicans are also concerned that Twitter’s strict content moderation policies may remain the same without Musk’s involvement.
“We need free speech back whatever it takes. Elon Musk, don’t let us down,” Boebert said Monday.
Musk hinted that the reason he may have left the Twitter board was his inability to advocate free speech policies fully.
The tech CEO liked a tweet by Twitter user TankTDS that reads, “Elon became largest shareholder for Free Speech.”
Let me break this down for you:
Elon became largest shareholder for Free Speech
Elon was told to play nice and not speak freely @elonmusk #Twitter #ElonMusk
— Tank (@TankTDS) April 11, 2022
According to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, the platform will remain open to suggestions from Musk even without him being on the board. Agrawal said in a note to employees Sunday that there would likely be “distractions ahead” because of Musk’s decision not to join the board and asked his staff to “tune out the noise.”
“We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our Board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input,” Agrawal said.
Conservatives who work in the social media industry said Musk had given up hope on making Twitter a better platform and reforming its content moderation policies.
“I think that Musk has found ever since he started his investments into Twitter that ultimately Twitter cannot be fixed, that Twitter is a fundamentally broken product,” said Jason Miller, the CEO of social media platform Gettr and one of Trump’s former top advisers.
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At the end of March, Musk created a poll on Twitter asking users if they believe Twitter adheres to free speech principles, which he said are essential to a functioning democracy. Approximately 70% of the more than 2 million people who responded to the poll answered “no.”
Musk has been tweeting his ideas on how to improve the company over the past week, including suggestions such as enabling blue verification check marks with the paid Twitter Blue service or calling for Twitter’s San Francisco office building to be turned into a homeless shelter “since no-one shows up anyway.”
Many conservatives said that with Musk not joining Twitter’s board and pushing for free speech policies, they are being forced to consider using other social media platforms instead.
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“Censorship on Twitter is out of control. I am hoping Elon musk can live up to his ‘free speech absolutism’ and turn things around, but if not, we will be forced to start migrating to other Twitter-like platforms like JasonMiller’s GETTR,” said Sameera Khan, a conservative Pakistani American writer who is popular on Twitter.
