Elon Musk Says the Risk of Him Being Shot is “Quite Significant”

On Saturday, Elon Musk said there’s “definitely some risk” in his safety following his discussion on free speech, Twitter changes, and the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Musk said, “Frankly, the risk of something bad happening or literally even being shot is quite significant. I’m definitely not going to be doing any open-air car parades, let me put it that way.”

He continued, “It’s not that hard to kill me if somebody wanted to, so hopefully, they don’t.”

During the discussion, Musk argued the importance of free expression and his plans for the social media platform.

“Throughout history, free speech has been highly unusual, not common. So we have to fight really hard to keep that because it’s such a rare thing, and it’s by no means something that’s the default,” Musk said. “Controlled speech is the default, not free speech.”

One day earlier, journalist Matt Taibbi published internal Twitter communications that revealed the platform suspended and censored those who commented on the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story.

“Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be ‘unsafe.’ They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g., child pornography,” Taibbi tweeted.

During the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, Musk claimed Twitter “was acting like an arm of the” Democratic National Committee. He also said more files would be released soon.

“We’re just gonna put all the information out there and try to get a clean slate we will be iteratively better, and it will force other media companies to also be more truthful, or else they’ll lose their readership,” Musk said.