Elon Musk said on Dec. 3, a day after the release of a selection of Twitter’s internal files that suggests the tech giant has suppressed free speech under its previous management, that he believes he faces a “quite significant” risk to his life.
“Frankly the risk of something bad happening or literally even being shot is quite significant,” Musk said in a Twitter Spaces discussion on Saturday evening, adding that he would “definitely” avoid open-air car parades in all circumstances.
“It’s not that hard to kill me if somebody wanted to, so hopefully they don’t,” the new owner of Twitter said. “There’s definitely some risk there.”
The remarks over his potential assassination came after Musk and independent journalist Matt Taibbi unveiled on Friday a trove of internal Twitter communications that provided a glimpse into Twitter executives’ efforts to censor the New York Post’s explosive Hunter Biden laptop story in the leadup to the 2020 presidential election.
Great work by Twitter Spaces team! https://t.co/L2mOCvXw5E
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 4, 2022
Musk, the world’s richest man, has vowed to stem the tide of Twitter’s censorship and suppression of free speech that was widely known to have targeted conservatives. After taking over the social media platform in late October, he has reinstated a number of suspended accounts, including the one of former President Donald Trump. The platform also halted on Nov. 23 its heavy-handed COVID-19 “misleading information” policy, which had resulted in more than 11,000 account suspensions, including those of scientists and doctors, and tens of thousands of pieces of content being removed since January 2020.
“As long as you’re not really causing harm to somebody else, then you should be allowed to say what you want,” Musk said during the Saturday discussion. During the audio chat, which last roughly two hours on Twitter Spaces, Musk shared his opinion on free speech.
“Controlled speech is the default, not free speech,” he said.
By Rita Li
