If large chunks of the employee base are talking smack about the possible new CEO, perhaps there are reasons they are doing so? "Elon comes in and throws the company into chaos" seems to be fairly accurate, FWIW.

> So someone correct me if I'm wrong but didn't many Twitter employees start talking about how horrible Elon was and how they didn't want to work for him

I think it's worth introspecting on where you got this impression and what "many Twitter employees" means. It seems to me there are many powerful people who want you to have this impression but that doesn't mean it's true. Twitter had thousands of employees and I'd bet a strong majority of them are not ideologues in the way you imagine. Just people who work 9-5 and value job security.

It’s one of the most left leaning tech companies. Elon has gone from being the hero of the left to the villain for daring to allow free speech.

> Elon has gone from being the hero of the left to the villain for daring to allow free speech.

I don't know if Elon Musk was ever "the hero of the left", or any tech executive for that matter? He definitely has his fans (among techies mostly), but you would be hard pressed for any hardcore leftist to see a CEO as their hero. The whole pedo thai diver incident turn even many left-leaning (and unaligned, and right-leaning) techies from pro to neutral or even negative.

I can't speak for "the left", but he went from someone I respected for his contributions to... not that, not because of his views on free speech, but because he started publicly acting like an asshole on a regular basis.

Nobody in the comment chain was talking about left-wing vs. right-wing ideology. I get that Musk is a partisan figure now, but this thread isn't going to get any better by turning it into yet another ideological battle.

Yeah, he's out there fighting for your right to say the N word. What a guy.

Freedom of speech is tough, huh? And in the USA it doesn't protect against promoting threats of violence. Seeing as the N word is probably considered the most hateful word in the English language, I can see it being understandably considered violent in many cases.

It is absolutely not literally violence to say or call someone the N word, no matter how repugnant or socially unacceptable it is. It is not illegal in the US to call people horrible names, nor is it illegal to be racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc.

This isn’t to say I advocate for people being any of those things, it’s just somehow become generally accepted that these things are somehow inherently breaking the law or some kind of hate crime. Even on the rare instance someone displays some racist material in public, the news is quick to say police are investigating…investigating what, exactly? “Hate speech” is not a crime in the US.

Do absolutists have gradients?

Is firing people for dunking on their CEO what passes for free speech now? Or do you mean firing people for having different political opinions from the CEO?

> It’s one of the most left leaning tech companies.

Personally I consider it meaningless metric since almost all American tech companies are left-leaning, for various reasons.

I presume people got that impression from highlighted Tweets from employees… which says something about the effect that Twitter has on discourse.

That is true, at least if you trust leaked discussions, however, this isn't an isolated example of Elon's leadership in action. All the points about the ideological captivity of Twitter employees are secondary to repeated behavior.

So is, "Don't talk open shit about your future boss" a point? Yeah, but so is Elon treating this process like an inhumane animal. The latter trump's a bunch of plebians with loud opinions.

It's been clear for a while that Twitter only has the presence it has because it was the first out of the gate and not because they're actually good at what they do. Their talents seem to largely be the ability to amplify the most toxic aspects of both the left and the right at the same time.

Here is where you are wrong. We simply cannot have people be held responsible for their personal actions. They would have to deal with the consequences of that. How will Democrats get votes?

Promise to pardon Jan 6 insurrectionists?

There were a handful of very vocal people who created that ruckus and the media amplified it.

> So someone correct me if I'm wrong but didn't many Twitter employees start talking about how horrible Elon

What a sensitive man-baby. For all his flaws, Mark Zuckerberg is no glass cannon. He is not prone to rage because his employees dared question him.