Photo courtesy of Elon Musk/Instagram
Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk recently purchased Twitter for over $44 billion on Monday, marking the acquisition as one of the largest corporate takeovers in nearly two decades.
However, Black Twitter voiced their opinions regarding Musk’s ownership of the social platform, including civil rights organizations. Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, issued a written statement addressing their concerns with the 50-year-old’s stance on free speech while denouncing hate speech.
“Mr. Musk: free speech is wonderful. Hate speech is unacceptable. Disinformation, misinformation and hate speech have NO PLACE on Twitter,” Johnson said in the statement. “Do not allow 45 to return to the platform. Do not allow Twitter to become a petri dish for hate speech or falsehoods that subvert our democracy. Protecting our democracy is of utmost importance, especially as the midterm elections approach. Mr. Musk: lives are at risk, and so is American democracy.”
While Twitter has more than 330 million active users, many have wondered how the social platform will continue to operate, given the questionable nature surrounding free speech on social media.
Martin Luther Cream, born Shaun King, said his Twitter account disappeared for hours after criticizing the CEO for taking over Twitter, citing “white power” as one of his alleged reasons for acquiring the platform. However, he assured his followers that he did not delete his account, per Newsweek.
“You wish, motherf****r. I didn’t delete my account. You literally made that up,” King tweeted. “I was getting death threats and hack attempts from your buddies who stormed the Capitol and had to make it more secure. I’m right here. And you are a white supremacist.”
King’s tweet was in response to Donald Trump Jr. retweeting an announcement that the 42-year-old deactivated his account. “Good luck not perjuring yourself when you testify before the January 6th committee,” he said.
He condemned Musk in a series of tweets just hours before his account went offline.
“At its root, Elon Musk wanting to purchase Twitter is not about left vs. right. It’s about white power,” King said in the now-deleted tweets. “The man was raised in Apartheid by a white nationalist. He’s upset that Twitter won’t allow white nationalists to target/harass people. That’s his definition of free speech.”
“Elon Musk has openly called himself a ‘free speech absolutist’ and said that he wants to create a space where anything can be said about anyone. That’s why white nationalists are giddy today, here on Twitter and other platforms that I track daily. It’s dangerous,” King noted.
“And listen, I don’t even like the Democratic Party. So for me, this isn’t about left vs. right. Not at all. It’s about how the richest man in the world, a son of Apartheid, raised by a white nationalist, wants to be sure his speech and that of other white men isn’t censored.”
Twitter users didn’t hesitate to mention Musk’s racist family history and connection to the white supremacist apartheid regime that ended 30 years ago in South Africa.
One user said, “I got so many ways I’m going to bring up Elon Musk’s family history with Apartheid in relation to his eventual mismanagement of Black Twitter.”
Another user suggested that Black Twitter is one of the reasons why the platform has been successful, prompting others to chime in on the discussion. “Black Twitter ran the value up on all this social media sh**,” he said.
“Can somebody start the actual black twitter now?” another user said.