Joe Rogan came to the defense of Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk over his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, now X. The podcaster said with this acquisition, Musk "may have very well saved humanity" by allowing people to speak their minds.
What Happened: Spotify Technology SA's top podcaster Rogan was talking to comedian Andrew Schulz on the Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) podcast.
On the topic of Musk, social media, and censorship, Rogan praised Musk for acquiring X and removing the censors that were put in place by the social media platform's previous management.
"He may have very well saved humanity in some way… by providing this one platform where people can actually speak their mind," Rogan told Schulz.
Rogan says that there is a limit to what is still allowed to be posted on X, even after Musk's repeated calls against censorship more broadly.
That said, he admits that there is a significant increase in the amount of racist content that is being posted on X now when compared to the period before Musk acquired it.
"I see so much racist s*** on Twitter now that I never saw before. Like, open… openly racist. And then you see people chiming in that agree with it."
However, Schulz thinks the new freedom on X allows people who disagree with this kind of racist content to "also chime in and disagree with it."
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"Those voices are all heard and there's a place for all of them," said Schulz, which Rogan agreed with.
Rogan adds that there are people with differing opinions and thoughts. "The answer to bad speech is not silencing speech. It's better speech."
Schulz, however, thinks that this is only possible if there is a place that allows this to happen in the first place. Both agree that Musk's X is that place.
Why It Matters: Musk and X have come under fire repeatedly over the content that is posted on the social media platform. Musk himself has found himself at the center of controversies over anti-Semitic content, and on one occasion, his own posts have been criticized for it.
This led to prominent advertisers like Apple Inc., The Walt Disney Co., IBM, and others pulled their advertising from X.
This enraged Musk, who not only called out these companies but also targeted Disney CEO Bob Iger specifically.
While Musk's battle with these tech giants is still ongoing, he has remained vocal against Iger – he threw his weight behind activist investor Nelson Peltz, supporting his bid for a chair on Disney's board.
Musk even went ahead to say that he would buy Disney shares of Peltz were elected to the Mouse House's board.
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Photos courtesy: Joe Rogan Experience and Wikimedia
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