Matt Taibbi, one of the journalists involved in the “Twitter Files,” expressed his disappointment on Friday with Elon Musk over the entrepreneur’s commitment to free speech.
While Musk picked Taibbi as one of the journalists to report on the social media giant’s communications prior to his takeover, the two have since had a falling out, reportedly over Taibbi’s use of Substack’s rival platform, Notes.
During an appearance on NewsNation, Taibbi was asked about Don Lemon’s partnership with X getting canceled after the former CNN host’s interview with Musk.
"I do believe that Elon proved to be very disappointing on the free speech issue," Taibbi said. "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, you know, 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 including me, and no one seems to care in the press."
Taibbi also weighed in specifically on one exchange between Lemon and Musk where the former CNN host asked the entrepreneur if he thought X should “moderate” hate speech.
"On the other hand, you know, in that Don was asking Elon why he wasn’t censoring speech more. He was asking about hate speech, which is legal in the United States. And the question, 'Why aren’t you doing more to moderate legal speech?' – it’s a little odd to complain about a free speech issue when you yourself are asking to do the same thing," he said.
Taibbi went on to offer what he believes would've been a better response than Musk's "I don't have to answer your questions" reply.
“He should’ve said, ‘Don, do you understand what you’re asking me? You don’t like certain ideas and certain types of speech and you want it censored. That’s not what I’m about.'”