ON THE SCENT OF ELON MUSK
THE Irish establishment really is mobilising against Elon Musk. Its most sacred voice has now joined criticism of the billionaire’s purchase of Twitter, with President Michael D Higgins describing it as ‘incredible and dangerous narcissism’.
The comments were, of course, treated as holy writ, as is everything uttered by the President.
But they seemed to be another vast overestimation of the importance not only of the sale of Twitter, but also of Twitter itself.
The social media company is irrelevant to the lives of most people, but ever since Mr Musk’s offer was accepted, panic has spread among self-anointed champions of free speech, as if he had bought the entire internet, with every communication on the planet now flowing through him.
The real issue for many exercised by this – if not necessarily for our Uachtarán – is that Mr Musk has the wrong type of politics, and that says a lot about their own commitment to free speech.