This is an underrated point because the U.S. failure to rein in the excesses of the ultra-wealthy is not just impacting our domestic politics but actually the politics of every country on earth. Imagine if Jack Ma had eventually personally intervened in U.S. congressional elections? That's pretty much exactly what U.S. oligarchs do to other countries regularly.
You are using a lot of obfuscated and loaded language. What, specifically, are the "excesses of the ultra-wealthy" that need to be reigned in? What do you mean by "personally intervened in U.S. congressional relations"?
s/relations/elections/ -- because Elon et. al don't just intervene in the elections of the country they live in, but actually any country he's interested in -- and uses the U.S. as a bludgeon in that effort, see U.S.-U.K. and U.S.-South Africa relations
How is Elon's editorial control of X something the government needs to (or even should have the power to) "reign in?" How is that not freedom of the press just like the owner of the New York Times having editorial control over his newspaper? Same goes for his donation to the PAC. What is the nefarious activity they are engaged in? Why are they not allowed to exercise their freedom of the press in the same way as any other company?
Before Elon Musk bought Twitter the previous owners engaged in different kinds of editorial control. The people who argued that editorial control of Twitter was something the owners had the right to do on their private platform and the people who argued that the government should find some legal mechanism to characterize this editorial control as some kind of crime so they could force Twitter not to do it, were flipped from what they are now.
> Before Elon Musk bought Twitter the previous owners engaged in different kinds of editorial control. The people who argued that editorial control of Twitter was something the owners had the right to do on their private platform and the people who argued that the government should find some legal mechanism to characterize this editorial control as some kind of crime so they could force Twitter not to do it, were flipped from what they are now.
Well I've been against this regardless of owners. Honestly, this stuff is really concerning. I spent a bunch of years working in social media, and back then I was sceptical that algorithmic content selection should be regarded as publication, but given how easy it is to shift the Overton window with changes here, I think that it probably needs to happen.
I do think that this will cause lots of downstream impacts that I like, but this much power is bad in anyone's hands, regardless of how much I agree with them.
What's wrong with a sovereign nation taking steps to reduce or eliminate the influence of a non-citizen who they feel is acting against the best interests of that nation?
If a nuclear capable country like France decides that someone like Elon Musk is acting against the best interests of their country they can ask him nicely to stop and if he continues they can use force to reduce the perceived threat.
This all seems completely in line with the day-to-day norms of contemporary society as well as historical norms.
He is a citizen of the US and has full political rights. There is only one legal distinction between a foreign born citizen and a natural born citizen and that is that he can't serve as president. France is absolutely capable of using force against Elon Musk up to and including their nuclear arsenal. However, they would need to decide whether it is worse for their interests to tolerate Elon or to detonate a nuke on US soil, and that's a pretty easy choice.
1. X is not, and has never been, "the press".
2. If you were to have categorized them this way previously, botting and pay-for-reach have made it definitely not that way now.
3. It is bad when any individual can shift the politics of the entire globe simply because they have enough money. Feel free to insert your most hated left-wing billionaire instead of Elon, I still believe the same thing.
> I believe this because it is his fundamental right as a citizen of the republic.
This is kind of exactly my point though. Citizen of what republic? Soros and Elon are both wealthier than most states and affect politics globally. They literally cannot be prosecuted, they are barely accountable to any legal bodies.
Citizens of this one. And they can be prosecuted. You just are not comfortable with the fact that they haven't really committed any crimes. Epstein was a billionaire too.
As a non-communist non-billionaire, I couldn't disagree more! :)
The abuse of absurd levels of wealth to advance one's own agenda is little more than bribery. When targeted towards those poor enough to worry about basic needs, it is effectively coercion, equally unethical as violence. (Not to mention such wealth is inevitably built on top of a a violent, exploitative system.)
