Elon Musk offers legal aid to X tweeters

Elon Musk’s promise to provide legal aid to users of X, formerly known as Twitter, who face repercussions from their bosses over posts has been called a ‘game-changer’.

The new Twitter logo rebranded as X. Picture: AFP

Elon Musk’s promise to provide legal aid to users of X, formerly known as Twitter, who face repercussions from their bosses over posts has been called a “game-changer”.

Mr Musk, who has himself got into legal troubles over controversial tweets, said the renamed social media platform would stump up cash to defend free speech.

The billionaire tweeted: “If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill. No limit. Please let us know.” The 52-year-old entrepreneur gave no details of how users could claim their money.

Since Mr Musk bought the social media platform for $US44bn ($67bn) last October, its advertising business has collapsed, in part because of its looser approach to blocking hate speech.

Mr Musk has cited a desire for freedom of speech as motivating his changes and has lashed out at what he sees as the threat posed to free expression from changing cultural sensitivities.

But according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a non-profit organisation, hate speech has flourished at the platform. X has disputed the findings and is suing the group.

Freedom of speech campaigners welcomed Mr Musk’s decision, including Maya Forstater, who won £100,000 ($194,000) in compensation after facing victimisation at work over her tweets.

The 50-year-old researcher went through a four-year legal battle with her former employer after posting her views on transgender people on Twitter.

Ms Forstater said of Mr Musk: “If he comes good on this it will be massive. Changing the incentives is THE thing that shifts the system. My employer discriminated against me because they were afraid of their funders. In the end it cost them hundreds of thousands. Let employers be afraid of discriminating.”

Toby Young, who founded the Free Speech Union, said: “If Elon Musk is serious about funding the legal cases of people who’ve been fired (or kicked out of university) for posting or liking something on this platform, that could be a game-changer.”

He said the Free Speech Union had “gone to bat for hundreds of people this applies to, but limited funds means we have to be quite selective about the cases we take to court”.

In December Mr Musk reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account, although the former American president has yet to return to the platform. Mr Trump was banned from Twitter in early 2021 over his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by a group of his supporters seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

X recently reinstated the rapper Kanye West eight months after his account was suspended for posting an image that appeared to show a swastika interlaced with a Star of David.

Mr Musk faced legal action, albeit not from his employer, after branding the British caver Vernon Unsworth “pedo guy” on Twitter in 2018. Mr Unsworth sought $US190m damages but a US jury found Mr Musk had not defamed him.

After buying Twitter, Mr Musk tweeted: “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square.”

The Times