The biggest question in American politics right now is: how far will the liberal establishment go to try to break Elon Musk?
It won’t be easy, but now he’s moved on Twitter, they will surely think it’s worth a try.
How they go about it is another matter.
After all, Musk is a knotty problem for the American left.
With the establishment of Tesla as the world’s number one electric vehicle company by far he’s arguably done more than any other individual to help combat climate change.
He’s donated to Democrats in the past, but also to Republicans. He objected to the departure of the USA from the Paris Protocols as orchestrated by President Trump.
He also has a substantial sideline in solar panel production – another tick for environmentalists – and, more confusingly, flamethrowers and rocketships. When he got annoyed by traffic issues in the US, he formed his own tunnelling company.
In short, he’s a man who likes to come up with solutions when he finds a problem.
It’s precisely that kind of can-do attitude that Americans have historically admired.
And now, to his own way of thinking at least, Musk has come up against a big one: Americans aren’t allowed to say what they think on social media.
This is not a problem that’s particularly salient for the left in American politics because, of all groups and classes in the world, they have been least affected by the hold the Tech giants have managed to gain over public discourse.
On the whole, left wing views are left unmoderated, and left-wing excesses are tolerated as unrepresentative, whereas right wing views and right wing excesses are regarded as inherently dangerous.
The fact that much of the moderating is done by computers who have no understanding of nuance doesn’t help soothe conservative irritation at this state of affairs, especially when it takes on a ridiculous aspect.
It was the banning of satire site Babylon Bee which reportedly moved Musk from a position where he’d noticed a problem to one where he now wanted to solve it.
The particular article that got the Bee the boot labelled a person who was born a man as a man, contrary to the mores of the gender ideology that prevails on the left.
Was it distasteful? – yes, like much of comedy. Should it have caused the Babylon Bee to be booted from Twitter?
Well, now you’re talking about one of the great divides in American politics. Should the internet, and by extension internet platforms and apps, be places where distasteful, abhorrent or extreme views are allowed to be voiced? And who gets to decide what is abhorrent and extreme?
Modern conservatives have taken the view that freedom of speech is sacrosanct, or at the very least should be upheld as a powerful check on tendencies totalitarianism. American liberals, who fear the harmful effects of amplifying such views, disagree.
Fair enough, a difference of opinion.
But of course, it doesn’t end there.
Because by taking their stance American conservatives find themselves in a double-bind not of their own making. A position that allows for the spreading of abhorrent views, it must in and of itself, according to liberals, be abhorrent. And if that’s so, according to the liberal view, then they should not be free to say so at all.
To date, silicon valley has largely taken the liberal side.
But though he is of that world, Musk, with his extensive activities in the world of engineering and manufacturing, also stands to one side of it. He wasn’t born in the US, and has no stake in winning or losing old battles. He seems genuinely to believe in free speech, and that a free and open discourse is the best way to arrive at truth.
Whether Twitter is in and of itself a platform where such an aspiration can ever be turned into reality remains an open question. Certainly, the track record to date has been patchy. The way numerous conservative Twitter accounts have suddenly been set free of their shadow-banning in recent days has only gone to show just how manipulative at all levels the platform has been.
And yet there is agreement on both sides of the aisle that Twitter is where the US’s public debate happens, where opinions are formed and honed, and where the big issues of the day are thrashed out.
Not surprisingly, right wing media is cock-a-hoop at Musk’s arrival, while the left is glum, to put it mildly. But when certain left-wing pundits argue that Musk’s acquisition of Twitter opens up possibilities of mass manipulation, it must surely be conceded that that horse bolted long ago, perhaps even at the inception of Twitter itself.
After all, it’s telling that the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, who lately has been giving off the air of a man seeking redemption, is in favour of the Musk deal. Can Musk actually deliver what Dorsey tried and failed to do all those years ago?
Perhaps, but perhaps not.
In the US, both media and government are almost exclusively in the hands of liberals. They are already chipping away legally, financially, and propagandistically at Musk’s ability to operate. He has the ability to fight back, of course. He has free speech, and he has his own Twitter account, with 85 million followers.
At least for now.