Elon Musk on ‘left, right and center’ amid debate over his Twitter takeover

Elon Musk, who was always a prolific Twitter user, seems to have doubled down on his dedication to reach out to his 88.3 million followers after his takeover bid finally came through this week, overcoming a spell of uncertainty. Now, with a debate raging that his takeover may spell trouble for the moderation policy of one of the most popular social networks in the world, the 50-year-old tech tycoon has gone on an overdrive to make his vision clear.

On Thursday, the world’s richest person shared a timeline of sorts in a meme to strike a chord with the social media users. It shows the transition from 2008 to 2021 and he seems to have taken a dig at “my fellow liberal”.

He is trying to suggest that while he was closer to the ideology of liberals in 2008, they seem to have drifted from him by 2012 as the conservatives looked on. And by 2021, the differences widened as it became a humorous spectacle for the people on the other side of the political spectrum.  Musk also suggested that his shift from left of the center to the right of the center was gradual. 

Now, this image came hours after he had tweeted: “For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally (sic).”

Musk has been pitching himself as a “free speech absolutist” amid talks that the social media giant may go through sweeping changes once he is at the helm, likely to happen by the end of this year.

There was also buzz that former US president Donald Trump, who was barred for inciting the public at the Capitol Hill last year, may return.

“Truth Social (terrible name) exists because Twitter censored free speech. Should be called Trumpet instead! (sic)” Musk, who often stumps in his tweets with sarcasm, wrote on Wednesday.

Despite the humour-laced tweets and big promises after the 44 billion deal seal, rights groups have not relented in expressing concern.

“Regardless of ownership, Twitter has a responsibility to protect human rights, including the rights to live free from discrimination and violence and to freedom of expression and opinion – a responsibility that they already too often fail. We are concerned with any steps that Twitter might take to erode enforcement of the policies and mechanisms designed to protect users. The last thing we need is a Twitter that willfully turns a blind eye to violent and abusive speech against users, particularly those most disproportionately impacted, including women, non-binary persons, and others,” rights watchdog Amnesty International said in a statement this week.