Elon Musk says X will fight for maximum freedom of speech under the law

Elon Musk has issued a warning on free speech for X employees. The word on the street is that Musk has previously fired staff for saying mean things about him. This is a sign that Musk, who calls himself a "free speech absolutist," has his limits.

The X (formerly Twitter) boss has been sparing no effort to ensure the platform protects free speech as far as the law allows. In line with this, the tech mogul ended up costing the company $350,000 (about £282,306) in fines for delaying handing over former US president Donald Trump's Twitter data.

Now, Musk has requoted a tweet by X News Daily, which quotes German prosecutors saying: "X is complying with more German requests compared to pre-acquisition when it comes to identifying users in Hate speech cases. This has raised concerns among civil liberties advocates, due to the strict and broad nature of Germany's hate speech laws."

Is Elon Musk a free-speech fundamentalist?

Taking to the comments section of the post, Musk wrote: "At the risk of stating the obvious, I don't know what's going on with every part of this platform all the time, but our policy worldwide is to fight for maximum freedom of speech under the law. "

Furthermore, the 52-year-old billionaire noted that anyone working for X Corp who fails to operate according to the aforementioned principle will be invited to further their career at any one of the other social media companies, which he accuses of selling "their soul for a buck".

Why did Elon Musk buy Twitter?

Musk purchased the microblogging website to "fix it," according to his biography. After taking over the platform, he has reportedly touted himself as a self-appointed advocate of free speech on social media, much to the chagrin of human rights activists.

Some human rights activists reportedly believe that Twitter is on its way to becoming an extremely unsafe platform. In his first tweet after clinching a deal to buy Twitter, Musk heaped praise on free speech, claiming it is the "bedrock of a functioning democracy".

Musk compared Twitter to a digital town square where matters related to the future of humanity are debated. Moreover, the Tesla CEO said he hoped his worst critics remain on Twitter "because that is what free speech means".

Although the platform faced a drop in downloads since its rebranding as X, Musk is focusing more on ensuring that people are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law. He was responding to a question about what X could do to support citizens in countries like Iran and China, where X is banned.