Elon Musk’s controversial decision to purchase Twitter for $44 billion in 2022 came about for several reasons. It acted, in part, as an accelerant to his desire to create an ‘everything app’ similar to China’s WeChat. But he also sought to roll back the censorship he said was taking place on the platform.
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“Overall, my concern with Twitter is that it is somewhat of a digital town square, and it's important that there be both the reality and perception of trust for a wide range of viewpoints,” Musk, who also owns Tesla (TSLA), said on HBO's (WBD) Real Time with Bill Maher. “And there was a lot of censorship going on. And we sort of uncovered a lot of that with the Twitter Files, including a lot of government-driven censorship.”
“That’s really why I did the acquisition,” Musk added. “It wasn’t because I thought this was an easy way to make money or something like that.”
The “Twitter Files” Musk refers to are a series of internal documents showing Twitter’s response to certain high-profile accounts and controversial issues that he released to three journalists -- Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and Michael Shellenberger -- in December.
The files reportedly show the company’s decision-making process surrounding Hunter Biden and former president Donald Trump. They also demonstrate how Twitter lowered the visibility of certain accounts or topics without informing users.
“I really can’t emphasize this enough. We must protect free speech,” Musk told Maher. “And free speech is only relevant when it’s someone you don't like saying something you don’t like. The thing about censorship is that, for those who would advocate it, just remember, at some point, that will be turned on you.”
