Elon Musk on Monday told his nearly 115 million Twitter followers that “independent-minded voters” should vote Republican in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
“To independent-minded voters: Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic,” Musk tweeted Monday morning.
Musk’s pitch comes the day before Americans head to the polls for midterm elections that appear likely to usher in a Republican House majority and a closely divided Senate.
Since taking the helm of Twitter following his $44 billion acquisition of the social-media platform, Musk has moved quickly in implementing significant changes. He immediately fired several senior executives, including Twitter’s CEO and CFO, announced plans to monetize the “blue checkmark” verification system, laid-off half the rank-and-file workforce, and contemplated reversing his predecessor’s policy of lifetime bans — all within his brief weeks-long tenure.
One of the motivations behind Musk’s purchase of Twitter in April was a desire to correct the company’s “strong left-wing bias.”
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk wrote.
Twitter censored the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 presidential election alongside other social-media outlets such as Facebook. Then-CEO and founder Jack Dorsey later called the move to block users from sharing the New York Post article, including in their private messages, a “total mistake”
Many conservatives have applauded Musk’s entrance as a crucial means of rebalancing the company’s double-standard treatment, barring far-right figures while mostly ignoring far-left ones on the platform.
Nevertheless, Musk has cautioned that he does not want Twitter to turn into a place where hateful content runs rampant. Twitter “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” Musk tweeted.