Could Elon Musk help feminists?

[ArabeIIaScott]

Specifically, he is offering to fund the legal fees of people who have lost work due to reports of things they've liked or tweeted.

Already the Australian councillor who was suspended for saying Transwomen are male and James Esses have asked for help.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1688022163574439937

I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him. And I'll support free speech most of the way but I'm not an absolutist.

However...
He has had personal experience with trans ideology and just the act of saying what he has said has an effect in itself

Good for him!

This is going to be fascinating!
Just one big case in the UK for us and it will be a game changer.

Looks like he's already speaking to someone who got fired for liking GC tweets!

I am liking him more and more and maybe he has rebranded Twitter to X so as to make a clear division between times of censorship and free speech. I can't see why he would exclude feminists from this offer.
It would save us having to keep funding all these cases.

Christ.🫠

I id wonder whether he renamed twitter 'X' due to the recent adoption of X as a gender marker/pronoun. It gets added to everything now eg Latinx

https://www.nyclu.org/en/news/why-x-gender-markers-matter

He just tweeted this too

He's already helped massively by making it possible to disagree with queer theory online again. The activist's had almost succeeded in silencing all dissent before that.

This is really great

We need a single sex equivalent to get the law moving to not be anti women

Well that’s a load of horse apples.

The man literally spent $40bil to break up the insular and censoring bubble that was Twitter. And it was a loud and powerful bubble that affected real life, policy and law. He’s not seeing those billions back - it wasn’t an investment.

Yes I agree. He's done it for personal GC reasons to a large extent, not just as part of an investment portfolio. When you're one of the richest people in the world you can use it to fund things you believe in or things you want to try and improve, wouldn't we all?

No, he’s an outlier as far as current day billionaires go.
No one comes even close to pursuing wild, expensive, personal quests. Also he genuinely speaks his mind, hence so many up in arms about him.

He’s one of the few people that can made a sizeable dent in the whole fiasco

I’m glad in the end he’s on this side

I am starting to hear "by any means necessary", and I'm not sure I like it.

I'd do exactly what he's doing, in his position.


Well that’s a load of horse apples.

The man literally spent $40bil to break up the insular and censoring bubble that was Twitter. And it was a loud and powerful bubble that affected real life, policy and law. He’s not seeing those billions back - it wasn’t an investment. 
He did in his backside. He invested in it to control it, decided to buy it on a whim because someone told him no, and then when he got what he wanted, tried desperately to back out. He only bought Twitter because he was signed a contract to do it and it was going to be enforced.

I'm not sure what you think is "horse apples" but he is currently being sued in two separate cases in the US for not paying agreed severance packages to staff he let go after buying Twitter. He has refused to pay rent to owners of the buildings Twitter occupies. Twitter has been taken to court in Ireland - and lost - after he tried to force staff out without adhering to labour laws. And he has shut down, suspended and banned accounts that say things he doesn't like.

He's not a defender of free speech, he's a petulant billionaire who stamps his foot when he doesn't get what he wants. If you think he's going to fight for anyone's rights except his own, he probably has a $44bn swamp he can sell you.

@ThatsMsAtomicBob
If true, that is dishonourable behaviour. What is the free speech angle? I remember the diver case and I thought his actions were bullying callous. But the way he has opened up the app formerly known as Twitter is in line with his stated commitment to free speech, so I do believe that this offer is genuine. Although of course it's about self-promotion as well and his interest may be short-lived.

*Musk's actions, obviously

This will be interesting to watch. For too long women have been crowdfunding just to get our basic democratic rights to free speech recognised. Look forward to seeing someone with his wealth and clout take on the regressive bigots trying to silence women and men.

So, anarchy?

Free speech only if he agrees with said speech.

Given time, he'll be holed up in an expensive hotel suite collecting his own urine in bottles and, whatever else Howard Hughes did.

Certainly preferable to having to work against him.

Which is what women have been up against in the past ten years - all the Big Tech companies have been very keen to shut down discussion up until now.

I’d be interested to see what free speech he is closing down on Twitter.

Not so interested in whether, out of the large number of people who lost their jobs when he slimmed down Twitter, some are feeling unfairly treated. It’s almost inevitable in a company that size.