Elon Musk Testimony To Congress Under Urgent Consideration

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Calling Elon Musk to testify before Congress is under consideration by a selection of Senate Democrats as the billionaire works through the process of buying Twitter. The Democrats contemplating summoning Musk for testimony include Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who serves as chairperson of the Senate Commerce Committee and remarked, “We’re thinking about it” regarding the prospect of the billionaire’s testimony. There are, however, no specific plans for a hearing or hearings involving Musk as a witness in the near future. The Senate commerce panel has previously heard from Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pinchai, prominent current and former tech executives who spoke to Senators about federal legal provisions that absolve social media platforms from legal liability for user-generated content.

According to Bloomberg, Musk didn’t respond to a request for comment about his potential willingness to appear before Senators, while Twitter opted not to comment. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is pushing for Musk to testify, remarking: “It’s a technology which is central to democracy and our economy and it is important for the representatives of the American people to hear what the new owners intend on using that technology to accomplish… We have to understand the censorship or lack thereof, content moderation or not, that is going to be the policy for the new owner… In terms of what the values are that this company is going to be creating for the new Elon Musk Twitter world, I think that’s actually a necessary role for Congress to play.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is also on the side of bringing in Musk for testimony. “There is a powerful imperative to ask him to tell Congress and the American people how he’s going to address the concerns that we’ve raised,” Blumenthal said.

Musk is a self-proclaimed free speech advocate — which is a perspective that over-simplifies the situation. It’s not just about letting people say more things — what about people and groups who engage in targeted harassment on the basis of someone’s identity? Musk also seems to not exactly know what he’s talking about regarding political issues; recently, he posted a meme depicting an individual on the left-hand side of the political spectrum as going further to the Left as recent years have unfolded — which isn’t an accurate assessment of the political environment in the U.S. The Democrat who was elected vice president in 2008 is now the president, and Democratic agenda items like expanding health care access and upholding personal rights are roughly the same as they were years ago. Meanwhile, supporters of the Republican then in office as president stormed the Capitol last year, hunting government leaders. And it’s supposedly the Left that’s gotten more broadly extreme?