The Elon Musk-Matt Taibbi ugly divorce
And oh yes, the Musk spy satellites; and, that time Musk accused Substack of theft
Musk stands for free speech? Really?
Journalist Matt Taibbi worked for Musk on the Twitter Files project. This was Musk’s purported effort to uncover Twitter-government collusion in censoring all sorts of Twitter posters.1
But Taibbi now says:2
I do believe that Elon proved to be very disappointing on the free speech issue. All of us who worked on the Twitter Files felt the same way. We went in feeling tremendously optimistic that he actually meant a lot of the things that he said about being in favor of all legal speech and, being a free speech absolutist and all these other things.
That proved not to be the case. He’s currently disenfranchising thousands of Substack writers, including me. And no one seems to care in the press.
Taibbi published exchanges between Musk and himself.3
TAIBBI: Elon, am I being shadowbanned [on Twitter/X]?
MUSK: We went on lockdown after discovering that Substack had stolen a massive amount of our data to prepopulate their Twitter rip-off. Looks like there is still a blanket search ban. Should be fixed by tomorrow. Going forward, tweets with Substack will not appear in For You unless it is paid advertising…
TAIBBI: Elon, I’ve repeatedly declined to criticize you and have nothing to do with your beef with Substack. Is there a reason why I’m being put in the middle of things? This really seems crazy.
MUSK: You are dead to me. Please get off Twitter and just stay on Substack.
Does that conversation sound like Musk is a free speech champion, as he’s claimed?
But then there is this.
Reuters reports that Musk’s company, SpaceX, has a billion-dollar contract with the US National Reconnaissance Office to build satellites that will be able to, well, spy on anyone anywhere.4
We’re talking continuous real-time imagery, gathered on the ground, anywhere in the world.
Like your backyard, for example.
Imagery pumped out for the US intelligence apparatus.
Hmm. Let’s see. Universal surveillance screws everybody and puts Big Fucking Brother over every shoulder. All the time.
Is THAT the work of a free-speech absolutist?
Possibly, just a guess, Musk thinks that when AI takes over the world and we all ascend into the wondrous brain-computer Merge, the Surveillance State will wither away, because it won’t be necessary…
Since we’ll be loaded in every brain cell with unassailable TRUTH…
And we’ll automatically think truth and obey truth…
And all will be well.
Yeah, that must be it.
So why not make an extra billion bucks on putting up spy satellites in the meantime?
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Musk just said we need a “Red Wave” in the 2024 election, to save the country.5 I guess the Wave doesn’t include freedom. We need all the other “Redness,” but freedom can be swept off the board.
Just like Trump says we have to have all the joys and benefits he’ll bring us…except we can’t eliminate the COVID vax kill shot, because it was his miracle that saved millions of lives. (I’m going to cover this in much greater depth in my new podcast Monday.)
Just like Biden says the American Way has to maintain an open border, so lethal fentanyl and cartel thugs and other gangsters from all over the world can come in and get free credit cards.
Funny thing: every big shot has his own exceptions and exclusions he just has to impose on us.
And impose on the Constitution.
PS: Like Taibbi, I know nothing about the Musk-Substack beef.6 But I suspect when you add it all up, it’s less than the destroying-freedom beef.
So who should really be dead to who, Elon?
— Jon Rappoport
1 “Twitter files: ‘Twitter engaged in widespread censorship of prominent scientists and medical experts for posting content that contradicted the official COVID-19 narrative, according to the latest ‘Twitter Files’ document dump, released Dec. 26, 2022…’” (here)
2 Cassandra MacDonald for The Gateway Pundit — on Mar 16, 2024, reporting on NewsNation host Chris Cuomo’s interview with Matt Taibbi on Mar 15, 2024 (here, and video clip of Chris Cuomo and Matt Taibbi here)
3 On Feb 15, 2024, Matt Taibbi published an April 9, 2023 text message exchange between himself and Elon Musk (here)
4 Mar 16, 2024, Reuters report (here). US National Reconnaissance Office (here)
5 Elon Musk’s red wave tweet (here)
6 The beef between Elon Musk and Chris Best, CEO of Substack, started in April 2023, when Substack introduced “Notes” to their platform (here and here)
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