Elon Musk worries free speech advocates with calls to prosecute researchers and critics
First Amendment advocates are concerned that Musk could use his sway as a Trump adviser to retaliate against a long list of enemies.
In July, tech billionaire Elon Musk said he hoped some states would consider criminal prosecutions of people participating in what he called an advertiser “boycott” of platforms like his social media app, X.
In October, Musk turned his attention to a former State Department official, Victoria Nuland, saying she should be “prosecuted” after she went on television and criticized him as a tool of the Kremlin.
And then last week, Musk revived a long-running feud with a group that monitors hatred online, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, saying that its members should be prosecuted for “their many crimes.”
Musk, the world’s richest person, has in the past two years called for several of his opponents to be prosecuted, and it’s something that free speech advocates say they could overlook if he were only an ordinary private citizen.
But now that Musk is gaining political power as a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, his demands for criminal charges against critics are much more worrisome, according to scholars and groups devoted to the First Amendment.
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