Elon Musk has marshalled an odd mix of supporters and detractors during his bid to take over Twitter.
The Republican elites have rallied to his defense in hopes of restoring Donald Trump to Twitter along with restoring Twitter to its prior greatness as a free speech platform. Not too long ago, this same group was condemning him for smoking weed on air and his public transportation boondoggle, the Hyperloop. One would be hard pressed to find a conservative voice extolling the virtues of electric cars, his reusable rockets and Solar City. Elon Musk’s green push does not fit the Republican narrative, even though its capitalist origins should get conservatives excited. At the same time, the Republican elites, historically, work to protect the large corporate executives and board members from shareholders, who merely want a voice in the companies they own. The ability of the Twitter board of directors to commit financial suicide via a poison pill and thumb their nose at the rest of the world is a direct result of the Republican elites’ legal protections.
Ironically, this hypocrisy is only exceeded by that of the Democrat elites. This crowd has always used torches and pitch fork rhetoric to rally the villagers against the excesses of corporate boardrooms and CEO over reach. They constantly condemn large public corporations for ignoring the rights of the owners. As they say, the retirees, who own the stock via their pension plans and retirement accounts, should have a seat at the table when decisions are made. Today, however, the Democrat elites are praising the Twitter board for rejecting an overly generous offer that would enrich the pension plans and bank accounts of the retirees who own Twitter stock. They praise the board for using a poison pill to destroy the value of the stock that American citizens rely on for income to pay for their medicine, buy cat food, go to church bingo and give two dollar bills to their grandchildren.
Simultaneously, these same Democrat elites stand shoulder to shoulder with a Saudi prince, whose family is known to kill journalists; the Saudi version of cancelling your Twitter account. Of course, this is all done in the name of protecting us from hate speech, which everyone knows is a false claim. Or better yet, looking out for the Twitter workers and saving society from the excesses of a greedy billionaire shareholder. Ironically, many of these same elites likely own small businesses and would never hand over control of their business to a group of employees, community activists or any other non-shareholder.
The reality is the average Republican and Democrat likely supported Elon Musk before the Twitter fiasco and even more so today. This group would love to own a Tesla, is tolerant of pot, and thinks Starlink is a cool idea. It is doubtful they support a Saudi Prince and a corporate board over a person who wants unfiltered free speech. Regardless of your opinion on Elon Musk, he is genuine, while the elites from both parties are nothing more than hypocrites using this as always for their own goals.