Matt Taibbi Says Elon Musk ‘Proved to Be Very Disappointing on the Free Speech Issue’

“Twitter Files” journalist Matt Taibbi said Elon Musk has not lived up to his commitment to ensure free speech on X, formerly Twitter.

He offered the criticism on Friday’s edition of Cuomo on NewsNation.

Taibbi was one of a handful of scribes handpicked by Musk to publicize company communications under Twitter’s ownership before Musk acquired the platform for $44 billion in October 2022. The venture aimed to depict former Twitter executives and other employees as bad-faith actors bent on censoring viewpoints they did not like.

Later, Taibbi had a falling out with the billionaire after he joined the rival platform Notes, which was created by Substack where Taibbi posts original content.

“Elon, I’ve repeatedly declined to criticize you and have nothing to do with your beef with Substack,” Taibbi wrote in a direct message to Musk. “Is there a reason why I’m being put in the middle of things? This really seems crazy.”

“You are dead to me,” Musk replied. “Please get off Twitter and just stay on Substack.”

Taibbi said Musk has shadow-banned him on X.

Appearing on NewsNation, Taibbi reacted to Musk’s split with former CNN host Don Lemon, whose deal with Musk to create content on X was canceled by the billionaire after Lemon asked him about increasing hate speech on the platform. Musk became irritated in response.

Host Chris Cuomo asked Taibbi for his reaction to the brouhaha. Taibbi said:

I do believe that Elon proved to be very disappointing on the free speech issue. All of us who worked on the Twitter Files felt the same way. We went in feeling tremendously optimistic that he actually meant a lot of the things that he said about being in favor of all legal speech and, you know, being a free speech absolutist and all these other things. That proved not to be the case. He’s currently disenfranchising thousands of Substack writers, including including me. And no one seems to care and the press.

On the other hand, you know, in that Don was asking Elon why he wasn’t censoring speech more,” Taibbi continued. “He was asking about hate speech, which is legal in the United States. And the question, “Why aren’t you doing more to moderate legal speech?” – it’s a little odd to complain about a free speech issue when you yourself are asking to do the same thing.

Cuomo said he agreed.

“And that’s what Elon should’ve said instead of that, ‘I don’t have to answer your questions. I’m doing you a favor,'” Cuomo replied, paraphrasing what Musk told Lemon when the latter asked about hate speech. “He should’ve said, ‘Don, do you understand what you’re asking me? You don’t like certain ideas and certain types of speech and you want it censored. That’s not what I’m about.'”

Watch above via NewsNation.

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