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The views expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy or Harvard Kennedy School. These perspectives have been presented to encourage debate on important public policy challenges. 

When the Russian bombs reached Tbilisi on August 8, 2008, Russian information warfare had already torn the global information space. Russian politicians and the media claimed that Georgian forces had started the war and had committed ethnic cleansing of the Ossetian population, justifying their full-scale invasion as a humanitarian mission.[1] These claims were spread globally, using new digital platforms, such as YouTube. This form of gaslighting[2] ensured that the Georgian government was spending time justifying its actions to the population and the world.[3]In 2008, Georgia was given up by the West. It took a decade for the allegations that Georgia had started the war to be dispelled,[4] but it was too late.[5] By employing information violence, Russia got away with “planned, premeditated, and intended” aggression to “bully into submission” a nation that aspired to be part of the Western world.[6]

This essay is not about Russia but about the similar strategy of information violence adopted by a single individual, Elon Musk, who, in 2025, is using it to bully into submission not a tiny post-Soviet country but the entire Western world. Like Russia was allowed to get away with aggression against Georgia, Musk was allowed to successfully wield his newly acquired social media platform Twitter (now X) to influence the U.S. elections. This success has reinforced the information violence as Musk’s primary strategy to force his view of the world on the 650 million monthly active users of X. Multiple times a day, Musk broadcasts his narrative on this platform, bombarding the users, forcing their minds to accept them as true. In the European Union (EU), the Digital Services Act (DSA) intends to ensure digital platforms are not used to interfere with democratic processes artificially, and since December 2023, Musk’s X has been under investigation.

While the outcome of this investigation may find Musk to violate EU law, this does little to counter his current reliance on information violence that may cause irreparable harm to communities using the platform. This essay attempts to collect some of the ideas Musk is pushing through his platform and the deep meaning behind them.

Freedom of Speech

Tech companies have long grounded their business practices in the First Amendment to shield themselves from government intervention, often leading to lawlessness in the digital environment exploited by business interests. However, Elon Musk has taken this “shield” further than anyone, calling himself a “free speech absolutist,”[7] advocating for digital platforms to tolerate all speech, unless outright illegal. “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy” was Musk’s first tweet after acquiring Twitter. Not long after, he tweeted that his pronouns were “Prosecute/Fauci” (mocking gender and Covid-19 misinformation policies), and re-posted misinformation about Hillary Clinton,[8] which raised serious brand safety concerns amongst advertisers that funded the platform, leading to an eventual boycott. In hopes of maintaining advertisers, Musk introduced “Community Notes” to replace the previous fact-checking controls. Advertisers left, nevertheless. Musk’s famous response to them was: “Go fuck yourself”, filing a lawsuit that has likely no legal bearing in court.[9]

Free speech (and freedom of expression more broadly) has hundreds of years of legal history, and it is nowhere near an absolute right, even in the U.S., where it has strong protections. Certain expressions are explicitly illegal, and some violate the rights of others, requiring platforms to handle the speech delicately.  Musk witnessed the limitations of the absolutist views of free speech first-hand when a stalker used the Twitter account that tracked Musk’s plane movement to follow the car driving Elon’s son home. Musk was outraged, suspending and declaring that such speech was not free and would not be tolerated.[10] When journalistic articles emerged about the potential hypocrisy of Musk’s free speech agenda, Musk shockingly suspended the accounts of the journalists reporting on the news.[11] In 2023, X suspended more than 5 million accounts, 3 million more than in 2022.[12]

So, if claims of free speech absolutism and free speech protectionism are evidently false, how can we explain Musk’s “free speech” campaign, which looks like he passionately believes? Before acquiring Twitter, Musk had been a long-time user. He was known for his erratic tweets,[13] which caused panic among his company shareholders and lawyers and led to the removal of tweets or formal apologies. Arguably, Musk’s Twitter takeover was inspired by his feeling limited by the rules – his actions reveal that he thinks the world’s richest man can have no limitations on his speech and influence („freedom of reach“). Musk often sees himself as a victim, and freedom of speech for Musk means his personal freedom to say whatever he wants, or more precisely, his personal entitlement as the world’s richest man, to control public opinion.

“Vox Populi, Vox Dei”

X advertising boycott is a serious issue for Elon Musk, threatening to kill a platform he invested $44 bn into, some of it through debt. That’s why in November 2023, at a DealBook conference, Musk accused advertisers of trying to kill X. The reporter attempted to explain advertisers’ perspective: “They are going to say, you killed the platform because you said these things, they were inappropriate things, and they were not comfortable on your platform. That’s what [advertisers] are going to say.”  Musk replied: “Let’s see how Earth responds to that.”[14] Musk continued: “That will be their argument, and I will say my argument and the judge will decide. The public is the judge.”[15] This conversation reveals some of Musk's core beliefs. First, he believes he is right, and he has „freedom of reach“ or is entitled to say anything he wants and is victimised by any limitations. Second, he thinks that the judgement of whether he is right or wrong depends on public opinion, and third, he believes that by buying Twitter, he acquired control of public opinion.

In hindsight, Musk saying “go fuck yourselves” to advertisers implied that he had a strong leverage for bringing advertisers back to the platform. Almost a week before this interview, following a poll on X, Musk had reinstated Donald Trump, whose account had been suspended by Twitter since the 2021 insurrection of the Capitol. “People have spoken. Vox Populi, Vox Dei” - the voice of the people is the voice of God, Musk tweeted.[16] This started Trump’s campaign, leading to the election win within one year. Apparent quid pro quo with the master dealmaker can be recognised in the following development: right after the elections, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta would switch to X-style “Community Notes”. Let me remind the reader that Zuckerberg created Threads to mock Musk, and support the left-wing exodus from Musk-acquired Twitter and rival X with a more inclusive, safe digital platform.[17]

Threads, as a brand-safe alternative for advertisers, was so threatening to Elon Musk that he famously challenged Zuckerberg in a one-on-one combat in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. While this clash never happened, Zuckerberg, who never allowed himself to use his platforms to influence U.S. elections actively, lost. On January 7, 2025, in what can be understood as the speech of surrender to Elon Musk, Zuckerberg announced alignment with Musk and Trump, in return, he said he expected their help with the legal troubles in the EU (more on that later).[18] Meanwhile, this signalled to advertisers that Meta was adopting X’s online speech practices and that there was nowhere in the digital U.S. that was brand-safe where advertisers could avoid inappropriate content. Following these developments, some advertisers carefully started to return to X.[19] “This is what a victory feels like!” That’s how Elon Musk celebrated the inauguration of President Trump,[20] as the recognition of his control of public opinion.

Democracy=Bureaucracy

While Trump's election as president of the U.S. was a critical victory for X’s survival, it was only the beginning of Musk’s war on U.S. political and legal institutions. Musk is convinced that he understands the essence of democracy. At least he projects that image to the users of X. Now, as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk is set out to go after the laws, and practices that he believes do not reflect the people’s will (which he now thinks he knows, as the owner of X). Cost efficiency is an essential value for Musk. Indeed, to ensure the success of his companies, Musk follows what he calls the “success algorithm”, the first principle of which is famously to “question every requirement”.[21] This meant challenging legal and safety requirements in the companies that sometimes got him into trouble with the law.[22] As the head of DOGE, Musk applies this principle to the legal framework of the U.S. itself, which many observers consider a significant threat to democracy.

To disarm the claims, Musk often tweets that when his critics say “threat to democracy”, they mean “threat to bureaucracy.” Such a characterisation of democracy as “bureaucracy” reveals the disconnection of Musk’s ideas from liberal political thought, which is the foundation of the U.S. legal history, and reveals a deeply problematic aspect of his ideology. While bureaucracy often carries negative connotations, it plays a vital role in democratic governance. Bureaucratic institutions establish checks and balances, enforce accountability, and ensure that the rule of law prevails over the whims of individuals.

While the 2024 elections gave Musk tangible influence in the executive and legislative branches, the U.S. justice system presents a final existential threat to him, and that has recently become a target of Musk’s information violence. “Vox Populi, Vox Dei. People have spoken. Impeach the CORRUPT judges!” Musk tweeted in February 2025 in response to the federal judge requesting transparency of the actions of DOGE. With many litigations pending for Elon Musk in U.S. courts, an assault on the judicial system is the last battle for the rule of law in the U.S. While his most recent attempt to influence U.S. judiciary failed,[23] his attack is unlikely to be over, as the judiciary constitutes the last frontline for executing his agenda.

Ironically, “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” is a quote from an 8^th-century letter to Charles the Great. The full quote translates to: “Do not listen to those who say the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the tumult of the crowd is always close to madness.”[24] If Elon Musk were connected to the history of political thought in the U.S., he would have understood that “Vox Populi, Vox Dei”, as he understands it, is also known as the “Tyranny of Majority”, one of the potential American nightmares for early political thinkers.[25] What is even more concerning is that when it comes to his own interests, Elon Musk does not follow the „pseudo-democratic“ (Vox Populi Vox Dei) principle. Musk famously ingorned the poll results, suggesting that he should step down as the CEO of Twitter.[26] When it comes to Musk, the voice of God is not with the people.

Civil War in Europe

If Musk is disconnected from American political and legal philosophy, he barely starts to understand the ideas behind the EU, which is likely the most significant threat he faces. In 2022, the EU passed the “Digital Services Act” (DSA), a product of a long legislative process to protect freedom of expression, amongst other rights, and to ensure that online speech is not limited arbitrarily and that does not lead to harm, including harm to Musk’s son. After Musk shared misinformation about the Israeli/Hamas conflict, endorsed antisemitic tweets, and made quick modifications to X in December 2023, the European Commission opened an investigation into X’s activities.[27]

Unlucky to Musk, he famously gutted Twitter’s legal department, responsible for compliance with laws such as the DSA.[28] Due to its large user base, the DSA requires X to have rigorous transparency, risk assessment, and mitigation measures to protect freedom of expression (including freedom of speech), and ensure that the platform is not arbitrary in moderating speech, and mitigate against the risk of safety, which Musk became familiar with when a stalker followed his son. As the DSA expert, I believe, like many others, that the likelihood of the current state of X as a platform complying with this law is near 0%. The only feasible option for Musk to have his platform X unaffected by the DSA is to exert political pressure on the EU.

After entertaining the thought that “civil war is inevitable in Europe” many times in 2023-2024, Elon Musk started to focus on the German elections, suggesting that “only AfD will save Germany” – endorsing Alternative for Germany, widely regarded as the neo-Nazi party. Influencing the elections in Germany was nearly as crucial for Elon Musk as the U.S. elections, as Germany has a strong presence in the EU institutions, likely weakening the resolve of the EU Commission to enforce its law against X. If there were any doubts, the vice president of the U.S. dispelled any clouds regarding the matter. First, on the AI summit in Paris, February, 10, 2025, Vance heavily criticised the EU, particularly the DSA, for demanding American companies to take down misinformation.[29] He clearly stated: “There are concerns that some foreign governments are intending to tighten the screws on US tech companies with international footprints. America cannot and will not accept that.” Second, during his famous Munich summit speech, he declared that the rules of the DSA that protect society from the spread of misinformation are the biggest threat to European security, even more significant than the Russian threat.[30]

The pick of JD Vance’s gaslighting[31] was framing the DSA, a legislative tool for ensuring the protection of fundamental rights online, including from Russian information war, as “Soviet-era terms of misinformation and disinformation” and referring to the EU Commissionaires as “EU Commissars”.[32] This image of the EU as the Soviet Union echoes the image Musk also endorses on X. In March, Musk shared the flag of the EU with the Soviet hammer and a sickle inside the EU stars, saying, “Imagine that you loved being governed so much that you want government for your government.”[33] As someone growing up in the post-Soviet country, the absurdity of this comparison would be funny if I did not know that acts of such information violence can lead people to consider these ideas plausible and instil doubt. Elon Musk makes it clear that he is willing to destroy the EU, nearly incite a civil war, and side with the Russian government to stay in control of public opinion because without it, he is going to have to endure a catastrophic business loss. Stakes for Musk cannot be higher.

Musk as a Humanist

Musk often portrays himself as a humanist. He often likes to cite his disagreement with Sergei Brin, Google co-founder, about the future of AI, where he was shocked by Brin’s post-humanist ideas, famously saying, “I love humanity, bro” and created an AI company – OpenAI – to rival Google’s DeepMind in creating Artificial General Intelligence.[34] Yet, Musk has a very specific understanding of “humanism”, seeing empathy as the “biggest weakness of the Western civilisation” and confusing radical acceptance with “woke mind virus”, which leads to complacency. This explains Musk’s ideological dispute with Europe, where radical acceptance and empathy have found their way into the legal and political system.

The EU attempts to synthesise two imperatives: a drive towards a unified European market for increasing prosperity and a drive to subject market processes to humanistic values expressed in the fundamental rights. Witnessing the atrocities of totalitarian regimes, such as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, the EU proclaimed “human dignity” as the inviolable condition and a primary objective of the legal framework.[35] The EU policy to sacrifice fast economic growth to avoid falling into authoritarianism and fascism was often criticised by Vladimir Putin and now by U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk, especially regarding the DSA. The DSA is part of the “digital constitutionalism” movement in the EU, which intends to subject processes in the digital markets to humanist values.[36] In summary, this dichotomy reflects a long history of expansion of neo-liberal economics and libertarian ideology and the survival of the rule of law.

Justice as Meritocracy

When it comes to justice, Musk believes that a just society is one that is purely “merit-based”. Musk’s advocacy for “pure meritocracy” is grounded in a problematic assumption: human potential and outcomes are solely the result of individual ability, unshaped by systemic inequalities or social hierarchies. By promoting this ideal, Musk dismisses the need for mechanisms that ensure equity and fairness, undermining participation, representation, and the recognition of diverse perspectives. While this view can seem to allude to the pursuit of “excellence” and is attractive to many people, when implemented without consideration of broader social contexts, it quickly devolves into a justification for elitism and exclusion.

Historically, fascist regimes have similarly cloaked their hierarchies in the language of merit, portraying themselves as champions of efficiency and progress while systematically erasing dissent and diversity. Musk’s rhetoric echoes this logic: by reducing governance to a competition of the “fittest” minds, he implicitly suggests that those who are less “fit”—however that is defined—should wield less influence, if any at all. This notion directly undermines the idea of “human dignity,” a fundamental democratic principle that every individual has an equal voice in shaping society, regardless of social or economic status standing. This is unacceptable for Elon Musk, who seems to believe himself entitled to have a reach proportional to his wealth – that is justice for Musk.

Musk as a Visionaire: Mars

While Musk thinks that a just society is the most efficient one, he also believes that humanity must leverage efficient markets toward an exciting and meaningful goal, such as becoming a multi-planetary species by colonising Mars. Assuming this is his primary mission and not becoming the world’s first official trillionaire, this vision is highly problematic when viewed alongside other aspects of Musk’s ideology. It translates societal justice into whatever helps humanity to go to Mars. For example, in that frame of mind, destroying the Earth or making life miserable on Earth can be understood as “just” as long as that drives humanity to Mars, which is “the” exciting goal.

Barriers to going to Mars - often framed as “bureaucracy”- are often intended to provide the population with certain guarantees about minimum quality of life. This includes freedom for people to pursue their personal joy and excitement (“pursuit of happiness”) and not be forced into the excitement of one single individual. That is the essence of fundamental rights. Musk vilifies these institutions, glorifies individual “genius,” and promises a utopian future that justifies the concentration of power in his own hands. He positions himself as an outsider battling a corrupt establishment, a narrative that resonates with disillusioned populations but ultimately serves to entrench autocracy.

What Musk forgets is that “democracy” is the vision for most of humanity. Freedom and justice are the goals that individuals and societies have pursued since this civilisation emerged. Sacrificing democracy for Mars is not a deal people would ever freely agree to make.

In 2021, Musk hired Walter Isaacson, the biographer who wrote the famous Steve Jobs biography, to portray Musk as an icon akin to Jobs, who inspired decades of tech entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, the book does not match the quality of the author’s previous work. Similarly, Musk lacks some character traits that make Jobs an icon. They undoubtedly share traits of narcissism and ruthlessness, which contributed to their companies' effectiveness and success. However, Jobs was captivated by art and spirituality, and his vision was to provide a tool for human freedom and inspire creativity. His insistence on quality, Zen and Bauhaus design, and his ability to connect with global talent have entrenched the idea of the tech industry as “cool.” I believe that Musk permanently managed to destroy that association.

Lex Zard, Technology and Human Rights Fellow, Carr Center