CANNES — Elon Musk said he would prefer X to lose advertising dollars and maintain freedom of speech than have the platform be censored.
“There were some advertisers who were insisting on censorship, and at the end of the day … if I have to make the choice censorship and money or free speech and losing money we’re going to pick the second,” Musk told WPP CEO Mark Read during his Cannes Lions conversation Wednesday morning.
“We’re going to support free speech broadly then agree to be censored for money, which is, I think, the right moral decision.”
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The SpaceX founder made the admission after Read asked Musk, 52, why he told advertisers to “go f—k ourselves.” Although Musk somewhat backtracked on his comment, insisting he wasn’t directing it at “advertisers as whole,” he doubled down on disagreeing with brands who believe “there can be no content that they disagree with on the platform.”
“There’s an important distinction here that we don’t want to take money to censor broadly on the platform,” the Tesla founder explained. “I think that would be wrong.”
Musk clarified that he didn’t believe free speech meant people could say “illegal things” and reiterated the importance of “free speech within the bounds of the law.”
The brains behind Neuralink also expressed concern about artificial intelligence causing a “crisis of meaning” for people as they realize the technology will outperform them.
“If the AI can do everything that you can do but better then what is the point of doing things? I think there will be an existential crisis of why do anything?” the father of 11 pondered.
“I think we’re at the most interesting time in history.”
