Free Speech, International

Get Musk: Leading Investor Calls for the Prosecution of Elon Musk for “Undermining” the Federal Government

Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee this weekend went on MSNBC’s “Last Word” and called for the arrest of Elon Musk for “undermining” the federal government by sharing his opinions on X.

McNamee is the latest denizen of the global elite to call for criminalizing speech to silence those with opposing views.McNamee is the founding partner of Elevation Partners and has a colorful history as a band member, a volunteer for Eugene McCarthy and a protester against Vietnam.

As discussed in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage”, he is like many liberal baby boomers now joining the anti-free speech movement. They have decided that free speech, once the defining right for the left, is now an existential threat.

McNamee’s rationale for criminalizing speech is chillingly shallow and irrational. He declared that somehow Musk’s political views made him a danger as the head of companies of major importance to the United States. It does not bother him when CEOs adopt far left views, just Musk opposing some of those views:

“You have somebody who runs a really strategic defense and aerospace projects for the federal government who’s actively undermining the government that’s paying him. And somewhere in that is a legal case that needs to be prosecuted.”

Perish the thought that a CEO might undermine the government.

McNamee is using the government contracts with SpaceX as a reason to censor Musk’s political and social views.

“The critical element in thinking about Elon Musk is that, like any American, he has a right to his own opinion, and he has a right to express his opinion. However, that right is not unlimited. He is under some special limitations that would not apply to normal people because his company, specifically Starlink and SpaceX are government contractors and, as such, he has obligations to the government that would, for any normal person, and should for him, require him to moderate his speech in the interest of national security.”

So, according to McNamee, if your company makes something that the government wants (including rescuing the currently stranded astronauts in space), he must give up his right to express political views, including against censorship.

McNamee embraces the power of the government to dictate viewpoints or at least silence certain views as a matter of national security. It is no accident that the overriding objective is to “get Musk.” Musk has proven the single greatest barrier to the global anti-free speech movement.

As with the effort in Brazil to block X entirely for refusing to censor political opponents of the government, McNamee’s call for state-driven censorship is where the movement is going next.

Notably, after Musk purchased Twitter, Hillary Clinton called upon European officials to force him to censor American citizens under the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA). Recently, Democratic leaders like Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison praised Brazil for its action to prevent citizens from having access to unfettered news sources.

What is most striking about these efforts is that they occurred after the failure of Plan A: to get Americans to embrace censorship.  Facebook even ran a creepy campaign to try to get young people to accept censorship, or “content moderation.”

The commercials show people like “Joshan” who says that he “grew up with the internet.” Joshan mocks how much computers have changed and then objects how privacy and censorship have not evolved as much as our technology. As Joshan calls for “the blending of the real world and the internet world,” content moderation is presented as part of this not-so-brave new world.

Joshan and his equally eager colleagues Chava and Adam were presented by Facebook as the shiny happy faces of young people longing to be content modified.  They were all born in 1996 — the sweet spot for censors who saw young people as allies to reduce free speech.

It did not work. Despite some erosion of free speech among young people, it takes a great deal to get a free people to give up their freedoms. Plan B is now to accomplish this objective of speech controls through national and global regulation. Figures like McNamee and Bill Gates are ready to support this brave new world of speech regulation by global censors.

While claiming unprecedented threats from “disinformation,” these are the same voices and rationales discussed in my book that have been used for centuries to limit the speech of others. They are selling the same defective product with the promise that less freedom will lead to a better life.

For global elites like McNamee, free speech is not just dispensable but distracting. Only fools would listen to these voices in trading away our indispensable right.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

187 thoughts on “Get Musk: Leading Investor Calls for the Prosecution of Elon Musk for “Undermining” the Federal Government”

  2. Jonathan: Roger McNamee calling for the arrest of Elon Musk? Horror of horrors! Who would want to “get Musk”–the greatest proponent of “free speech” in the world?

    Musk is entitled to his “opinions”. But when he uses his platform to support rioting in Ireland, endorses antisimitic posts on X falsely claiming Jews are fomenting hatred against White people and saying those posts are “the actual truth”, or attacking a SC Justice in Brazil because he thinks he is above the laws of that country, that’s not exactly an exercise in “free speech”. It’s ironic Musk would take that position when he has said X “can’t go beyond the laws” of the countries in which X operates. Then why get into a fight over the laws of Brazil?

    Musk doesn’t just express his “opinions” he engages in illegal activity. Take his recent attempt to set up a fake website to help voters register to vote. Instead of submitting those registration forms he buried any that he thought might vote Democratic. He was forced to take down his website after a number of complaints.

    Musk is engaged in his own censorship. Shortly after taking over Twitter Musk blocked a BBC documentary that was critical of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. Musk blocked “The Modi Operation” at the behest of the Modi government, which called the film “hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage.” This censorship came at a time when Musk was exploring locations for a $3 billion factory in India. Connect the dots! Musk is not planning to build a factory in Brazil.

    It’s the same thing with Musk’s lawsuit against advertisers who have been fleeing X in droves. He wants to force advertisers to put ads on X next to neo-Nazi propaganda and other hate speech. If advertisers choose not to advertise on X that’s their “free speech” right. So Musk has a very strange and distorted concept of “free speech”. It’s free speech for me but not for thee!

    2. X “can’t go beyond the laws of” …Brazil, in this case. However, Alexandre de Moraes, the judge stoking the whole jihad against Musk, is *not* aligned with Brazil’s laws. His extralegal assault on Musk is the problem. The judge has arrogated to himself powers which the Brazilian legal system does not allow him to exercise, and his seizure of the assets of SpaceX, an entirely separate entity, simply because Musk has controlling interests in both, is unconscionable. That the UN government has not filed any form of diplomatic protest is inconceivable.

      As for the the whole lawsuit against advertisers screed, I think you are mistaken. Mush is suing Media Matters, who maliciously manipulated the system to produce a handful of results to create the implication that companies attempting to sell laundry detergent. breakfast cereal, and shampoo were going to have their ads displayed next to Islamic Jihad recruitment pages or Stormfront fansites. One of the screenshots Media Matters was using to demonstrate this was only displayed on a single account–the one that Media Matters had created expressly for the purpose of creating such juxtapositions. Discovery in this case is going to be devastating to Media Matters and likely some of their co-conspirators.

    3. Musk is entitled to his “opinions”. But when he uses his platform to support rioting in Ireland

      Dennis: any comments to offer before you scuttle back to the gutters about both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris supporting the rioting, pillaging, looting, and murder of your infamous 2020 Insurrection Campaign Season Of Mostly Peaceful Rioting, Pillaging, Looting and Murder?

      Anything other than exercising your virulent hatred of Musk for depriving you of Twitter as a propaganda arm of your police state fascist political party?

      You’re a pathetic Cheap Fake Human Being, Dennis.

  3. “. . . require [Musk] to moderate his speech in the interest of national security.” “[T]hat is a legal case that needs to be prosecuted.”

    Every tactic the Left uses to destroy free speech is right out of the totalitarian’s propaganda playbook:

    Government interests (over individual rights) — check.

    Use the courts to do your dirty work — check.

    Appeal to children — check.

    Play games with words (“disinformation”) — check.

    Lots of happy talk — check.

    There are nefarious “foreign interferences” — check.

    Sops to free speech — check.

    Recruit a pliant media — check.

    Recruit fellow travelers and apologists — check.

    Smear opponents as “enemies of the state” — check.

    The tyranny is for your own good — check.

    Sacrifice the individual to the collective — check.

    The government is the voice of the collective — check.

    If it walks like a duck . . .

  5. It’s because he’s African-American. Damn Diversitists and their color judgments, class bigotry and labels.

  6. Actually, the most disturbing part of McNamee’s position is the shallowness of his argument. Besides his money, how does he qualify as elite?

  9. What does the left really believe?

    Using IRS data, the fintech company SmartAsset ranked states based on net migration of young households (ages 26 to 35) in 2022 that earned at least $200,000 a year. The biggest losers: California (-3,226), Illinois (-1,323), Massachusetts (-1,102), New York (-345) and Pennsylvania (-320).

    Michigan, Louisiana, Delaware, Minnesota and Missouri round the top 10 losers. Delaware (6.4%) and Illinois (4%) lost the largest share of their young, higher-earning households.

    The biggest gainers were Florida (1,786) and Texas (1,660)

  11. Free speech is not without cost(s), examples may be as simple as calling a friend a Fool or bragging about this or that and later being discovered as a Liar or biting the hand that feeds you. What seem to have happened is now words have physical impacts, so be told, having its origins years ago? Carriers and purveyor of this whimsy are educators and media at all levels.

    You dare not say anything which will impact my brain, they may say. In the physical sense the brain weights approx. 3 pounds and is made of nerve tissue and is protect by bone matter, the storage part is divided by two halves (right and left hemispheres) and four lobes (frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital) where feeling may be located is an addled brain I dare not speculate.

    The Progressive Left, Liberal Left, and Conservative Left, well really all leftist, have lost their intellect, moral, and civil compass. Their ideas are so far afield it’s hard for me to image that anyone could shallow their insane ideas and freely give up rights to the State.

    Quote, Logan Pearsall Smith: Afterthoughts ‘Life and Human Nature’

    “There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.”

    Or how about Saul Bellow: ‘Humboldt’s Gift’

    “The idea, anyway, was to ward off trouble. But now the moronic inferno had caught up with me.”

  13. You ask how are Democrats saving democracy? (1) By kicking out the person almost everyone voted for in the primary, and crowning a different nominee that nobody voted for. (2) By waging lawfare to remove the opposing party’s nominee from the ballot in various states. (3) By keeping someone on the ballot that has withdrawn from the race, so as to drain away votes from the person they oppose. (4) By censoring speech so that substantive debates of the issues are curtailed. (5) By waging lawfare against their opponent to try to put him in jail.

    So basically, Maduro of Venezuela = US Democrat party.

  14. * Phillipians 4:8. Think on these things….

    Made for such a time as this. Be wise for wiser words were never spoken.

    1. *Philippians 4:8

      Paraphrase.. whatever things are true, honorable, lovely, just, pure, of good report, praiseworthy think on these things.

      People focus on lies, dishonor, vulgarity, half truths, false praise and become disturbed.

      Mr. Musk honors freedom of speech in politics. He believes in freedom. He must have seen President Trump alone without powerful allies as he was being thrashed. He decided to become Trump’s second in the fight. It’s praiseworthy.

      As to the crimes posted on X, hopefully a policing strategy for drug trades and children’s purity will be developed.

  15. What a joke.
    The definition by some of national security.
    Real American national security requires that we make friends with Russia,
    not find any pretext to oppose them.

    1. Tyrants must always have someone or some thing to lay blame upon for their own failures and to dangle the bright shinny object so as to distract the otherwise gullible innocents and useful idiots.

  16. Professor Turley,

    He might be subject to a non-disparagement clause. I assumed your legal blog would address the actual legal term to which the investor was referring. But, alas, you attacked him without having any knowledge of the contractual obligations that may, in fact, apply to Musk.

    So, do you have a copy of the SpaceX government contracts to prove whether or not a non-disparagement clause exists? If you do not, what is the purpose of this post? Is it to “fuel the age of rage” about which you purport to care so deeply about?

      1. ATS you are off in lala land.

        Private EMPLOYMENT contracts are different. One of the main reasons that is so is because the government has made it extremely difficult to end someone’s employment.

        You can cease to do business with McDonalds simply by stopping going there.

        You can cease doing business with Budweiser by not buying their product.

        Where there is a contract such as with Boeing or SpaceX – you can cease doing buisiness when the performance of the contract is complete, or when the other party has breached the contract. If it is a government contract terms that would violate the first amendment such as disparagement clauses would be null and void – which is why with near certainty Musks contracts with the government do NOT contain disparagement clauses.

        They are also uncommon though legal in B2B contracts. Why ? Because if one party breeches the contract the other party is in multiple ways going to disparage that party.

        You not in the real world. You have made up terms and conditions in Musks Government contracts that if they actually existed would be unconstitutional.

        1. “…because the government has made it extremely difficult to end someone’s employment.”

          – John Say
          _____________

          Which corpus juris are you adhering to, the Communist Manifesto?  Please read the Constitution.  

          The government has no dominion over private property, may not deny the right of any individual to private property, and most governmental agencies and departments, including employees, are unconstitutional as they may not be taxed for or created by regulation.  

          Private property means that dominion over the entirety of the property is the owner’s per the 5th Amendment, which is self-qualified, allowing no further qualification absent an amendment.  

          Public entities may only exist if their existence does not deny constitutional rights and freedoms of individuals and if their existence may be taxed for or regulated per Article 1, Section 8.  

          Please cite the Constitution for any power of Congress to tax for anything other than debt, defense, and “general welfare”—ALL WELL PROCEED—not one, some, or a few, as in basic infrastructure such as roads, water, electricity, internet, post office, etc.

          Please cite the Constitution for an enumerated power to regulate anything other than the value of money, commerce among nations, Indian tribes, and states, and land and naval Forces. 

          1. Which corpus juris are you adhering to, the Communist Manifesto? Please read the Constitution.

            George, the constitutional Confederate who provides us with his weekly Rebel Yell, hissing with Pure White Blood spite that the slaves freed by Lincoln and the deaths of Union troops should have been “compassionately repatriated” to foreign countries they had never seen, much less set foot in.

            George is such a cull.

          2. George I am NOT defending what Government has done.
            It is independently both WRONG and unconstitutional.
            But SCOTUS has found otherwise, and it not likely to change anytime soon.

            While there are a few specific issues I disagree with you on – you litterally are doing the same stretched constitutional intgerpretation regarding the citizenship requirements of presidents as the left engages in. The constitution is not supposed to be that elastic.

            On many many constitutional issues I agfree with you.

            That does not change the FACT that those in govenrment and especially those in the supreme court do not.

            We need to return to Lochner, and reverse Wickard V. Filburn.

            But the most important issue at this moment – and one that we MIGHT be able to do something about is thwarting this woke nonsense.

            I can live grudgingly with some of the bad decisions of the supreme court – so long as they MOSTLY get our constitutional freedoms CLOSE to right.

    2. ATS There can not be an enforceable non-disparagement clause in a contract with the government – that would be a violation of the first amendment.

      You clearly do not understand how Rights work. Particularly the first amendment.

      The First amendment bars government from censoring with EXTREMELY limited exceptions such as Child pornography,

      First amendment constraints do NOT generally apply to private actors.

      I can restrict what can be said in my home, or my business.

      But even my broad rights to restrict free speech within MY property are constrained – IF I accept government funding.

      Private colleges need not protect the free speech rights of students and professors – EXCEPT when they accept funding from the government.
      Nearly all private colleges accept governmetn funds and therefore are bound to very nearly the same first amendment constraints as Government.

      There are minor differences in how the first amendment applies to other government contractors, but as a rule Government contractors have more legal requirement to conform to the first amendment than private businesses do.

      The government can not put an enforceable non-disparagement clause in a government contract.

      Doing so would violate the first amendment.

      I would further note that the whole idea is STUPID.

      Those of yuou on the left have this idiotically stupid view of government as inherently a force for good.
      That proves your complete ignorance of history and reality.

      Economist Jame Buchanon won the Nobel for his work demonstrating how the same human nature factors that are the root of the laws of economics in a free market behave entirely different – and nearly always BADLY in the context of government.

      Free markets with few exceptions are self regulating. Conversely the same bad conduct that self regulates away in a free market is actually amplified withon government.

      Madison observed that the fact that men were not angels requires government, but it also requires oversight of government itself.

      As Loard Acton put it – Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

      ALL government strives to increase power, toward corruption.

      The first amendment has many purposes, but a MAJOR one is to assure that the governemtn can ALWAYS be criticized.

      We must ALWAYS be able to criticise government. Musk must be able to criticise government, YOU must be able to, I must be able to.

      Even that is NOT nearly enough to prevent the natural tendency of government to become corrupt and totalitarian.
      But it is an important foundation to build on.

      Government is a necessary evil that we must CONSTANTLY keep watch on. It will ALWAYS seek to become harmful and dangerous.

      1. The government can limit free speech if the contract is attached to defense spending. Classified information and military or national defense issues can be an exception. The government CAN issue non-disclosure agreements as long as it is voluntary. If Elon voluntarily agreed on a contract that included a non-disparagement clause then it is not a violation of the first amendment.

        If you freely enter into a contract with the government with a non-disparagement or non-disclosure clauses then your rights are voluntarily given up. Just as it is with the right to remain silent. You don’t automatically have the right just be remaining silent. You have to invoke it first.

        1. “You have to invoke it first.”

          Wrong, dipshit. You have to give it up. You don’t have to invoke it.

          “your rights are voluntarily given up.”

          You even said so ^^^

          Contradict yourself much?

        2. “The government CAN issue non-disclosure agreements as long as it is voluntary.”
          NOPE – an NDA and a violation of the espionage act is NOT the same thing.

          ” If Elon voluntarily agreed on a contract that included a non-disparagement clause then it is not a violation of the first amendment.”
          That is true ONLY if the contract is NOT with the government.

          “If you freely enter into a contract with the government with a non-disparagement or non-disclosure clauses then your rights are voluntarily given up.”
          YUou are free to enter into those contracts – but your rights are NOT given up. The circumstances under which voluntarily giving up rights with respect to government are constitutional are incredibly narrow.

          ” Just as it is with the right to remain silent. You don’t automatically have the right just be remaining silent. You have to invoke it first.”
          Please, Please Please take a course in BASIC logic.

          No you do not have to “invoke” your right to remain silent. You just have to remain silent.

          Generally people “Invoke” the 5th amendment – which is not exactly the same as the right to remain silent – when they are testifying in court.
          You do not have to tell a police officer “I invoke my right to remain silent” – you just have to be silent.

          You are engaged in absurdly stupid reasoning.

          Do you have to “invoke” your right to be free ? If you do not – are you automatically a slave ?
          If you voluntarily agree to be a slave – is that a binding contract ?

          EVERYTHING with regard to government is actually a contractual relationship – the “Social Contract”.

          Can government condition responding to class for police by getting you to agree to surrender a right ?

          Can it condition receiving government benefits on surrendering a right ?

          Not only are you stupidly wrong about the law and the constitution ,
          You seem to be unable to grasp that not only ISNT what you claim constitutional – but it CAN NOT BE.

          A system in which citizens have near infinite rights, but where Govenrment can get you to voluntarily surrender them in return for interacting with governemtn will rapidly becaome a system with no rights at all.

          AND will equally rapidly FAIL because freedom is a critical requirement for prosperity.

          Whether you like Musk or hate him – you have to acknowledge that he has accomplished things that no one else has, and that if he did not exist that the void would NOT magically be filled. That does not mean that the things he accomplished would never happen, only that they would take longer and harder and as a result we would all be poorer – and that is just the consequence of limiting the liberty of ONE person.
          Restrict the liberty of EVERYONE, and everything takes longer and is harder – if it happens at all.

          Our constitution is not perfect. But it is pretty damn good. The US came from a relatively inconsequential set of British colonies – the West Indies produced far more value for England than the american colonies, to the worlds sole super power a nation with one of the highest standards of living in the world and the highest standard of living of any nations with a population greater than about 5M people.

          That success is not accidental. Myriads of economic studies have found that freedom is a requirement for rising standard of living and the less freedom there is the slower standard of living rises – or even declines.

          For most of human history we had slavery. We do not today – because Slavery does not work. It is inefficient. If as those on the left claim this country was built on slavery – then the south would have easily defeated the north in the civil war.

          The most efficient system there is, is when people are free to do as they please and they freely choose to do what benefits others – because it benefits themselves.

          “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest”
          Adam Smith.

          Free people meet the needs of others – because that is in their own interests.
          Because they are free – no additional force is necescary and that is most efficient.

          Put more simply – our constitution our system of freedom and rights is the reason that we are incredibly prosperous.

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