The elusive politics of Elon Musk
As the tycoon gears up for a possible hostile takeover of Twitter, many are wondering what happens if the social media platform becomes his personal megaphone.
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Mr Elon Musk expresses views that don’t fit neatly into America’s binary, left-right political framework.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Jeremy W. Peters
(NYTIMES) - The opinions poured in, 280 characters at a time, as to whether it was good or bad that Elon Musk had offered to buy Twitter for more than US$40 billion (S$54 billion) and take it private. A person’s politics typically dictated how he felt: Conservatives cheered it as a victory for free speech. Liberals fretted that misinformation would spread rampantly if Mr Musk followed through with his plan to dismantle how the social network monitors content.
But what no one seemed to be able to say with any certainty was what kind of political philosophy the enigmatic billionaire believes himself.