Opinion | Elon Musk’s Twitter Show Makes Sense. Yes, Really.


At a second in our historical past when there’s a lot scorn heaped upon as soon as revered political, mental, cultural and non secular leaders, Mr. Musk has harnessed that mistrust and wooed the cynical and unmoored to hitch forces with him. He requires nothing extra of them than their fealty. And he gives in return not solely his knowledge but in addition his humor, which they, surprisingly, maybe, discover to their tastes. In contrast to different social media customers, significantly these in politics and authorities, he gives his pearls of knowledge, his likes and dislikes, with a wink, not a scowl — an emoji reasonably than a lecture.

After delivering near-apocalyptic prophecies, he dons his superhero/savior cloak to rescue the world from the risks he warns us it faces. His electrical vehicles will save the local weather; ought to the local weather not be rescuable, his rocket ships will transport human beings to Mars. His Starlink satellites present “web to probably the most distant areas,” together with boats on “waters all around the globe.” Twitter will give us the unvarnished, uncensored information that the mainstream press quashes. His yet-to-be-developed A.I. platform, TruthGPT, will probably be a “maximum-truth-seeking A.I.” and defend civilization from the risks of the now widespread chatbot ChatGPT, which, he warns us, is “being skilled to be politically appropriate, which is just one other method of claiming untruthful issues.”

Mr. Musk insists that he bought Twitter as a result of he believes in free speech and in citizen journalism. Whereas different information websites edit and fact-check objects, a Twitter-connected citizen journalist can publish his or her “information” with none analysis or proof. The outcome, which Mr. Musk champions, has been an outpouring of particular person truths on the location. Chief among the many citizen journalists tweeting forth their truths is Mr. Musk himself. The hazard right here is that he has conflated soapboxes and information organizations. Twitter is a soapbox, an amplifier; it’s not, and may by no means be, an alternative to a information group with reporters, editors and truth checkers.

Selling Twitter-style “free speech,” Mr. Musk eschews debate, dialogue, argument. As a result of he controls the location and his engineers have adjusted the algorithms to amplify his tweets, he has transformed Twitter into his personal personal trolling machine. Convincing his supporters that each different information supply is biased, unbalanced and feeding the “woke thoughts virus,” he diminishes the standard and scope of public debate, and this at a time when we have to discuss to at least one one other, as a nation and as a folks, about our priorities, our values and our insurance policies at dwelling and overseas.

As an alternative of selling the dialogue throughout ideological boundaries that we require, Mr. Musk sows distrust, which deepens the divide. He has constructed a silo round his soapbox and locked himself and his followers inside. Each utterance from the skin can, from this vantage level, be dismissed as meaningless noise, “woke” propaganda, mischievous, deceptive, harmful lies. His truths alone stand inviolate, his genius intact, his merchandise honored and promoting.