MSNBC anchor Katy Tur joined the meltdown by many on the left Thursday over the possibility of Elon Musk buying out Twitter and bringing free speech with fewer restrictions to the microblogging platform.
Musk revealed on Thursday morning that he had made an offer to purchase 100% of Twitter for $43 billion. The bid resulted in many on the left panicking over the future of Democracy in the belief that Musk would ease moderation on the platform.
Among those panicking was Tur, who interviewed tech journalist Kara Fisher about the development on MSNBC.
“There are real and devastating consequences for using that platform to lie, and we’ve seen it happen,” said Tur.
“Yes!” agreed Fisher.
“I wonder,” Tur added, stammering. “You know in talking about this, you know, it’s kinda funny, oh, Elon Musk wants to buy it, but there are massive, life and globe-altering consequences for just letting people run wild on the thing.”
“Yes, one hundred percent, but that’s Facebook, is really, where the real action is in that, so, this is a very small company. It has an outsized influence cuz media people like it, politicians, world leaders, and Elon Musk.
Swisher went on to joke that Musk sounded like a supervillain and said that the billionaire believes he is the Marvel superhero Iron Man. She also pointed out that Wall Street appeared not to take the offer seriously since the price of Twitter shock had not risen after he made the announcement.
Tur also expressed serious concern that Musk might allow former President Donald Trump back on Twitter after he was permanently banned in 2021.
When asked why he was interested in controlling Twitter, Musk explained that the platform could be pivotal to the development of freedom around the globe.
“My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” Musk explained at Ted Talk 2022 in Vancouver, Canada.