(Natural News) When Elon Musk became the largest shareholder in Twitter last month, he immediately went to work suggesting improvements for one of the world’s largest social media platforms.
One of them — getting rid of the blatant censorship of particular points of view and alternative explanations and narratives for current events — was immediately attacked by the ‘democracy-loving’ left as barbarous, dangerous, out of the question.
Then Musk upped his game: He got the money together to actually buy the platform, and then the left-wing talking heads really began to explode.
That any American, and especially those who make their living under the guise of the First Amendment, would find free speech objectionable and want to control it, is telling. But the fact that the effort to control speech on Twitter is coming from the left is even more telling, considering they are the ones who regularly tout their “democracy” credentials.
Now, according to the UK’s Daily Mail, there is a new effort afoot to sabotage Musk’s purchase by chasing away the platform’s advertisers:
Twenty six NGOs and advocacy groups signed a letter expressing concern about the world’s richest man’s plan.
Musk himself responded to the letter asking who funded them: the answer being an assortment of ‘dark money groups’ like George Soros’s Open Society Foundation; NGOs founded by former Clinton and Obama administration staffers; wealthy Democrat donors and their family foundations; labor unions; and the governments of European nations.
“Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter will further toxify our information ecosystem and be a direct threat to public safety, especially among those already most vulnerable and marginalized,” said the letter, going on to claim that putting ads on Twitter means their company “risks association with a platform amplifying hate, extremism, health misinformation, and conspiracy theorists” — all of which actually describes the left, not Musk or his free speech views.
“Under Musk’s management, Twitter risks becoming a cesspool of misinformation, with your brand attached, polluting our information ecosystem in a time where trust in institutions and news media is already at an all-time low,” the letter continued.
“Your ad dollars can either fund Musk’s vanity project or hold him to account. We call on you to demand Musk uphold these basic standards of community trust and safety, and to pull your advertising spending from Twitter if they are not,” the letter went on, suggesting that Musk’s multi-billion offer to buy the platform is just an ego trip, not a true-blue business venture that he hopes will be successful.
To that end, reports noted this week that Musk has managed to secure several billion dollars more in investment funds, per TechCrunch:
A group of nearly two dozen investors, including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, crypto exchange Binance and asset management firm Fidelity, has invested over $7.1 billion to back the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid to acquire Twitter.
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who is also an investor in Tesla, delivered the largest check, at $1 billion, a Thursday filing revealed. Sequoia has chipped in $800 million, VyCapital $700 million, Binance financed $500 million and Andreessen Horowitz invested $400 million, the amended 13D filing said. Notably, no investor has put in more than $1 billion and large PE firms are still MIA.
“Elon is the one person we know and perhaps the only person in the world who has the courage, brilliance, and skills to fix all of these and build the public square that we all hoped for and deserve,” said Ben Horowitz, co-founder and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, in a tweet.
4/Elon is the one person we know and perhaps the only person in the world who has the courage, brilliance, and skills to fix all of these and build the public square that we all hoped for and deserve.
“We invested, because we believe in Ev and Jack’s vision to connect the world and we believe in Elon’s brilliance to finally make it what it was meant to be. While Twitter has great promise as a public square, it suffers from a myriad of difficult issues ranging from bots to abuse to censorship. Being a public company solely reliant on an advertising business model exacerbates all of these,” he added.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think we’re headed towards recession?
LLOYD BLANKFEIN: We’re certainly heading — it’s a very, very high risk factor. There’s a path, a narrow path, but I think the Fed has very powerful tools. It’s hard to finely tune them and hard to see the effects of them quickly enough to alter it. But I think they are responding well. It’s definitely a risk. If I was running a big company I would be very prepared for it. If I was a consumer, I would prepared for it. But it’s not baked in the cake.
The White House claimed President Joe Biden’s administration made the baby formula shortage crisis a top priority as early as February, even though the president claimed ignorance of the problem on Thursday.
“This is something he is focusing on very acutely and again I said 24/7 we’ve been working on this since we have learned about this back in February,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during the daily briefing about Biden, calling the issue “one of the presidents top priorities.”
Biden bristled when asked by reporters on Friday if he could have acted sooner to fix the crisis.
“If we had been better mind readers, I guess we could’ve, but we moved as the problem became apparent to us,” Biden said.
The president did not even personally mention the crisis until Friday, despite weeks of reports highlighting the problem.
“I’ll answer the baby formula question because, all of a sudden, it’s on the front page of every newspaper,” Biden grumbled on Friday.
He announced the launch of a new government website to help parents locate baby formula in stores, but it was beset by extremely long hold times and unhelpful information.
Jean-Pierre alluded to a comment from Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Bacerra claiming the Biden administration had been working on the issue since February and even as early as last year in 2021.
CNN: “You are satisfied with the government’s response throughout [the baby formula shortage]?”
HHS Sec. Xavier Becerra: “FDA has kept me apprised of this from LAST YEAR. We have been moving as quickly as we can” pic.twitter.com/5WRZa5chYg
“You’ve heard us talk about this, you’ve heard colleagues talking about what we have done since February,” Jean-Pierre said. “We’ve been working on this 24/7.”
Jean-Pierre refused to offer a timeline for when supplies of baby formula would return to normal.
“What I can say is there are a lot of dates floating around out there,” she said.
President Joe Biden struggled Monday with the correct pronunciation of the name of Aaron Salter Jr., a heroic ex-cop and security guard who died Saturday confronting the Buffalo mass shooting suspect.
“We pay tribute to all law enforcement officers and their families who understand what it takes, what’s at risk, to save and protect all of us,” Biden said. “That includes paying tribute to the Buffalo police officer Aaron Salder — Slater, excuse me — who gave his life trying to save others.”
Biden spoke about Salter during a Public Safety Officer Medals of Valor ceremony at the White House for law enforcement and public safety officials.
Salter was a Buffalo police officer for 30 years before retiring in 2022 and taking a security job at the Tops Friendly Market where the shooting took place.
Salter hit the alleged shooter with at least one round from his pistol, but it was blocked by the alleged shooter’s bulletproof armor. Salter was later shot and killed during the attack.
“You’re the heart and soul and very spine of this country and communities,” Biden continued, praising the public safety officials in the room.
During the ceremony, Biden also botched the name of Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a Democrat congressman from New York.
“Excuse me. You can call me ‘Bidden,’” Biden joked, mispronouncing his own name. “We’ve known each other so long and I still stumbled. I apologize.”