Elon Musk, the world’s second-richest billionaire who has spent the last few weeks exploding rockets and morphing Twitter into an unusable hellscape, made a special appearance on Friday’s episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
After an introduction by an amorous-seeming Maher, in which he was given credit for everything just short of inventing water, Musk took the stage to go over his many achievements and receive further praise for being “a likable guy.”
“I’m so thrilled you’re here because, you know, we do a show where we talk about what changes happen in the world, but we just talk,” Maher said. “There’s a very few people who actually make change happen — you are one of those people.”
“I just wanna say, I love this audience,” was Musk’s reply. Pleased, and possibly surprised, to hear people clap after what Maher had just said.
“You’re a likable guy,” Maher continued. “They attack you a lot, and you seem to laugh it off. Which I think is fantastic. I love it that you have a sense of humor. Because a guy as important as you, who makes changes, could use your powers for evil and not good.”
At this, Musk makes a cartoon villain face, hamming it up to the host and audience.
“I would never use them for evil. That would be crazy,” said the man who used his platform to call for the defunding of NPR just weeks ago.
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After exchanging more flattering pleasantries, with Musk offering up that he’s long since been a fan of Maher’s show and Maher, in turn, calling Musk a genius, the segment moved into talk of the importance of technology as playing a heavy role in the advancement of society.
“I think technology is the thing that causes these big step changes in civilization,” Musk said, going into a monologue about the Gutenberg press, the internet, the nervous system and exchanging information via osmosis.
Getting more into the initial concern that spread after Musk purchased Twitter, making sure to say that he had every confidence in him the whole way through, Maher asked his guest to explain the “woke-mind virus” that he often speaks of in relation to social media culture.
“I think we need to be very cautious about anything that results in the suppression of free speech,” Musk said. “You can’t question things. Even the questioning is bad,” he offered in further explanation of the harms of being “woke.”
As The Atlantic pointed out in an article earlier this month, Musk’s routine cherry-picking when it comes to what he deems to be acceptable forms of free speech is, “mostly code for a high tolerance for bigotry toward particular groups, a smoke screen that obscured an obvious hostility toward any speech that threatened his ability to make money.”
“I feel like, very often, wokeness is not building on liberalism, it’s the opposite,” Maher jumped in, emphatically agreeing with everything Musk had said.
“Free speech used to be a liberal value,” Musk furthered. “Yet we see from the left a desire to actually censor, and that seems crazy. I think we should be extremely concerned about anything that undermines the first amendment . . . Free speech is only relevant when it’s someone you don’t like saying something you don’t like . . . The thing about censorship is that, for those who would advocate it, just remember that at some point that will be turned on you.”
Watch a clip from the segment here:
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Kelly McClure