Musk will buy Twitter after all, striking a welcome blow for free speech

Elon Musk is back at it, driving the left crazy and confounding investors. 

The mercurial Tesla founder has agreed to buy Twitter after all, at the $54.20 price per share agreed upon all those many contentious months ago. 

The head-spinning turn of events has the woke Left up in arms. The Hill quoted Angelo Carusone, president of the ultra-liberal Media Matters, claiming that Musk “will turn Twitter into a fever swamp of dangerous conspiracy theories, partisan chicanery, and operationalized harassment.” 

Bridget Todd, communications director of the women’s advocacy group UltraViolet, asserted in a statement that “Elon Musk is about to rip open Pandora’s box and flood the internet once again with hate, misogyny, racism and conspiracy theories.” 

All this outrage because Musk has vowed to create a “virtual town square” and has described himself as a champion of free speech. Worse, Musk has suggested he might vote Republican.

It is a strange time in our country, where Democrats rail about unseen threats to our democracy, but at the same time are horrified that someone might uphold a freedom that is regarded globally as the bedrock of any democracy…freedom of speech.

For millions of Americans, Twitter and Facebook interfering with the 2020 election by suppressing the damaging Hunter Biden laptop story and giving Joe Biden a free pass is a real threat to democracy. 

To the Left, free speech should only be guaranteed for those who agree that men can bear children, that legal and illegal immigration are synonymous, that using the wrong pronouns is an act of violence but that assaulting an innocent bystander is not. Go figure.

Musk’s critics were quick to pounce when news of his about-face broke, delighted that his often erratic behavior had finally caught up with him. Someone named Joe Patrice wrote a piece for a publication called Above the Law titled, “Twitter Complaint Demonstrates That Every Lawyer, Everywhere, Always Is Smarter Than Elon Musk.” He smirked that Twitter’s lawsuit contained “brutal allegations painting Musk’s business acumen as only slightly removed from handing a seal three beach balls and several billion dollars, my primary takeaway from the complaint was: joy.” 

Sure, Musk is a real dummy. That’s why the U.S. government has come to depend on him for our space probes, how he managed to found the visionary and only totally excellent electric car company in the world and he’s worth about $250 billion. Right.

To be sure, the eccentric billionaire’s path to buying Twitter at an exorbitant price has been tortured and careless. There is no question he is overpaying for the social media company. He charged into making a deal back in April, and gave up the usual protections which might have allowed him to wiggle out of the purchase when tech stocks headed south. That was a mistake.

But it is worth remembering that when Musk went after Twitter last spring, tech stocks had been on an incredible multi-year roll, the market overall was in a better place and the billionaire’s willingness to chase the stock did not seem as reckless as it did soon thereafter. 

On April 4, the day Musk announced that he had bought up 9.2% of Twitter’s shares, the NASDAQ closed at 14,532. The tech-heavy index was down 10% from its high; two months after his announcement, the NASDAQ had dropped 27%.

Twitter, ahead of Musk’s revelation, was selling around $33 per share, down from $64 a year earlier. Paying $54.20 did not appear at the time totally crazy. 

Why the change of heart? Musk was about to be deposed in a trial which held little promise of escape. He was presumably ready to argue that Twitter management had fraudulently understated the number of spam accounts on its platform; a second whistleblower was rumored to be in the wings, primed to corroborate claims made by another ex-Twitter employee who backed Musk’s allegations.

But Musk’s legal team probably saw defeat looming in Delaware’s Chancery Court, where the trial was scheduled to start October 17; the odds of winning were slight, given the history of similar petitions before the court. Rather than risk a trial, Musk caved. 

Unless something unexpected happens (with Musk, you never know), it looks like he will end up buying Twitter at a premium for a firm that has been missing growth targets and that may actually have a serious bot problem. 

In any event, if this self-made brilliant entrepreneur wants to blow many billions on making Twitter an open platform, I say “bravo!”

Millions of Americans are disgusted with the leftward bias of our social media companies, and will welcome Musk’s purchase of Twitter and commitment to open dialogue. Having seen Big Tech suppress debate about COVID treatments and vaccines, about the Biden’s family possibly illegal influence peddling and conservative opinions on other controversial matters, I will join them. 

Published on Fox News