Billionaire Elon Musk was criticized after he rather childishly attacked California Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, who had criticized Musk's open attacks against free speech since acquiring the social media platform Twitter.
On Friday, December 16, Schiff took aim at Musk for declaring himself a "free speech absolutist" and looking the other way as "hatred and bigotry" proliferate on Twitter.
He also criticized Musk's recent move to ban several prominent journalists from the platform, adding:
"[Musk's] devotion to free speech is apparently not that absolute. But the hypocrisy is."
You can see Schiff's tweet below.
Schiff's tweet soon caught the attention of Musk, who expressed glee that Democrats will lose control of the House of Representatives come January, while also childishly attacking Schiff's intellect, tweeting:
"Thankfully, you lose your chairmanship very soon. Your brain is too small."
Musk later deleted the tweet but a screenshot has been provided below.
@elonmusk/Twitter
Schiff's criticisms of Musk's leadership style came after Musk banned several prominent journalists from Twitter, including CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, The New York Times’ Ryan Mac, The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, and other journalists who have covered the saga unfolding at Twitter, which has been riddled with scandals since Musk acquired it.
Musk claimed the journalists violated his new “doxxing” policy by sharing his “exact real-time” location, saying these violations are akin to providing “assassination coordinates," though he has provided no evidence he, as one of the world's richest men and a major public figure, is in any real danger.
Musk later polled the Twitter community and asked if the banned journalists should be reinstated, with the majority saying the accounts should be reinstated "now." Although Musk attempted to redo the poll, the results were the same and he subsequently honored the results and reinstated the suspended accounts.
As far as Twitter users were concerned, Musk's childish attack against Schiff appears only to have proven Schiff's point.
Musk's stewardship of Twitter continues to be remarkably controversial and numerous scandals have prompted his critics to point out his hypocrisy on the matter of free speech.
Last week, Musk made headlines for banning the Twitter account @elonjet, the brainchild of young programmer Jack Sweeney that tracks the itineraries of Musk's private jet.
Sweeney confirmed the account had been suspended in a post published to his official Twitter account, which included a picture showing his account had been suspended because it "broke the Twitter Rules" and is now "permanently in read-only mode."
The account's suspension came mere days after Sweeney posted a thread on Twitter titled "My Twitter Files" in which he revealed he'd learned from an anonymous Twitter employee that his account had been subject to a shadow ban, which blocks users without their knowledge, typically by making their posts and comments no longer visible to other users.
Musk later decided to ban Sweeney from the platform altogether, an action that has only intensified existing criticism about his penchant for silencing his critics and spreading misinformation.
Musk's latest controversial move was to institute a policy that suspended accounts for linking out to competing social media sites. Musk quickly backtracked on that policy as well, even apologizing and tweeting out a poll asking users if he should "step down as head of Twitter." 57.5% of users responded that yes, he should step down. Musk claimed that he would abide by the results, but as of the time of publication, he has not made public any plans to step down.
