With Musk Walking Away, Do Conservatives Have a Future on Twitter?

E lon Musk told Twitter last Friday that he will no longer be pursuing his $44 billion deal to buy the company. The law firm representing Musk sent a letter to Twitter stating that the company seems to “have made false and misleading representations” and that it “is in material breach of multiple provisions of that agreement.” Musk accuses the company of not providing sufficient data and information for him to analyze the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on the platform.

Since then, Twitter has filed suit against Musk in the Delaware Court of Chancery, stating that Musk signed a binding merger agreement and now “refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.” Musk may very well lose the lawsuit and be forced to go through with the deal. If Musk is successful in exiting the agreement, he will have to pay a $1 billion “breakup fee,” consistent with the terms laid out in the April 25 acquisition agreement.

Musk responded to Twitter’s lawsuit with a meme pointing out that the lawsuit may backfire on the company:

Assuming Musk successfully gets out of the deal, this will be a major loss for conservatives, who were hoping that a Musk Twitter takeover would lead to less censorship of conservatives on the platform. Musk stated as much in his first meeting with employees on June 16, telling them they must allow legal speech on Twitter, even if it is considered harmful to some. Musk said to employees, “I think it’s essential to have free speech and to be able to communicate freely.” Musk also commented on the difference between “freedom of speech” and “freedom of reach,” saying, “I think people should be allowed to say pretty outrageous things that are within the bounds of the law, but then that doesn’t get amplified, it doesn’t get, you know, a ton of reach.”

Musk, meanwhile, repeatedly implied that Twitter has a serious problem with bots, or automated accounts that can deceptively do what human beings do, tweeting:

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has also suggested that people were going after him as a result of the deal:

With Musk now backing out, Donald Trump Jr., on his father’s social-media platform, Truth Social, predicted a return to the status quo for Twitter: “I can almost guarantee that whatever censorship they were doing will be back tenfold at this point. Zero chance of free thought or speech there at this point.” Trump Jr. is probably right; at best, things will revert back to where they were prior to Musk’s announcement, with censorship and suspensions fairly routine, a practice conservatives see as disproportionately meted out to them.

Conservatives have a decision to make. Do they remain on Twitter, the platform that suspended Jordan Peterson on June 30 for referring to actress Elliot Page by her former name, Ellen Page, as well as the satirical Babylon Bee, which committed the grave sin of naming Rachel Levine, the transgender assistant secretary for health, “Man of the Year”? Or do they look for a different platform? Truth Social, in all likelihood, is not that place. Still, while it’s hard to believe that the popular blue check-marks on Twitter with tens of thousands of followers would give up their reach in order to retain intellectual independence, they should join the existing alternatives. Parler tried to be the alternative Twitter, and prominent conservatives like Ted Cruz joined the platform. The company initially struggled as corporations like Apple and Amazon united to quash it, but it now claims to have more than 16 million registered users. Platforms such as Rumble, Gettr, and MeWe don’t censor users’ posts based on political views.

There are various reasons why conservatives should stay on Twitter, of course. Popular right-wing firebrands have built up a following on the platform for years, and they can reach countless people on the right and left with their ideas. They can also sometimes find common ground with people on the left. Daily Wire podcast host and author Matt Walsh had a brief moment of unity the other day with J. K. Rowling, when Rowling, who’s become as famous for her comments on transgenderism as for her books, complimented Walsh on his hit documentary, What Is a Woman? Unfortunately, Rowling then distanced herself from Walsh because of a disagreement over whether famous women who refuse to stand up to transgenderism deserve the scorn they receive.

If conservatives left Twitter en masse, of course, users of the platform would only be exposed to the ideas of the Left. For this reason, abandoning Twitter completely would be a mistake. Conservatives should maintain a presence on multiple platforms, Twitter among them. This will come in handy when the inevitable suspension happens there, giving them alternative outlets.

The big question now is whether Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter has shaken things up enough to make a difference, perhaps spooking the company into enacting some reforms, or whether it will return to its old ways of censoring those who disagree with the progressive elite.