Mark Meckler: Elon Musk will increase transparency and free speech
Convention of States President Mark Meckler reacts to the Elon Musk purchase of Twitter.
A TIME commentary headlined "What Elon Musk Really Believes" suggested that both liberals and conservatives are getting something wrong about the billionaire who just purchased Twitter.
"Yet what matters isn’t whether Musk is a nice person so much as what he wants with his $44 billion platform. And it is in trying to read his motivations that both left and right seem to be getting Musk wrong," TIME's National Political Correspondent Molly Ball wrote.
FILE - In this March 14, 2019, file photo Tesla CEO Elon Musk pauses while speaking before unveiling the Model Y at the company's design studio in Hawthorne, Calif. Musk will face the electric carmaker's shareholders during the company's annual meeting on Tuesday, June 11. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
TWITTER APPROPRIATELY EXPLODES OVER NEWS OF ELON MUSK SALE: ‘GULP’
Ball wrote that many of the liberal attacks on Musk focus on his billionaire status and his "maximizing his income and evading responsibility," noting that most of his fortune is "on paper" and that if he ever avoided paying taxes it was because the government taxes income and "not wealth."
Musk said in 2021 that his taxes were not some "deep mystery" and that his wealth was transparent during an interview with The Babylon Bee, a satirical site. He said that he could easily do his own taxes and that it would only take a few hours. "I don’t have any offshore accounts, no tax shelters," he said during the December 2021 interview.
After Musk was named TIME's Person of the Year in December 2021, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said he was "freeloading off of everyone else."
Musk responded to Warren by calling her "senator Karen."
"Those who think Musk ought to be paying more taxes should blame the tax code, not him, as the liberal senators who are trying to change the system acknowledge," the piece contended.
Elon Musk takes to twitter to reveal the Model 3 (Reuters)
The TIME piece also said that another "misconception" was that Musk was "bilking the government." Tesla received a government loan in 2010, according to TIME, but only after he put millions into starting the company.
"But even if it were true that Tesla couldn’t have made it without government help, it’s odd to hear liberals criticize the deployment of public funds to encourage environmental innovation," the piece said.
Ball said that liberals "have a point" with regard to criticism surrounding Musk disregarding "public health and safety" in 2020.
Musk said that COVID-19 lockdowns were "fascist" in 2020 and re-opened a Tesla factory in May 2020 despite the California county's rules.
Conservatives "are likely mistaken to see him as an ally," the piece argued. Ball noted Musk's support of former President Barack Obama and how Musk resigned from the presidential advisory committees for former President Donald Trump after the administration’s decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord.
Musk, along with Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai, signed a statement reiterating they would continue to support the 2015 Paris Agreement in 2019.
The author wrote that Musk views himself as someone "transcending the left-right political divide" and concluded that Musk chose Twitter as his next big "problem" to solve. "Democracy could depend on whether he succeeds," Ball concluded.
Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk stands in front of the shattered windows of the newly unveiled all-electric battery-powered Tesla's Cybertruck at Tesla Design Center in Hawthorne, California on November 21, 2019. (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
The piece also looked back at Musk's interview with the TIME when he was chosen as the magazine's Person of the Year in December 2021.
During the interview, Musk was asked if he was worried about the U.S. government.
"We have a two-party system, which generally means that issues get assigned in a semi-random manner into one bucket or the other, and then you’re forced to pick one bucket," Musk said during the 2021 interview. "Or like there’s two punchbowls, and they both have turds in it, and which one has the least amount of turds? So I don’t agree with, necessarily, what either party does."
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Twitter accepted Musk's $44 billion offer on Monday, after he previously purchased a 9.2% stake in the company and declined a seat on the social media giant's board of directors.
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