‘Elon Musk may have libertarian ideas, but economically anchored to military-industrial complex’

Twitter’s chief executive officer Elon Musk may have “vague libertarian ideas,” but he is economically anchored to the military-industrial complex, an academic has said discussing the implications of Musk's Twitter takeover.

Pro-Palestine professor, David Miller, sacked by Bristol University over his criticism of Israel and Zionism, made the remarks on Press TV’s Palestine Declassified aired on Saturday.

Last year, Musk, the world's richest man, bought Twitter. Musk has claimed to be a champion of free speech and has vowed to make Twitter better by making the algorithms open source and defeating the spam bots.

Miller explained whether Musk can be a defender of free speech in general, or is it a case of except for Palestine?

“In one way [Musk’s takeover of Twitter] has been fairly good because this is the thing which the Zionists groups did not like; he sacked a whole slew of people who were involved in content moderation, and most of what they were doing was making sure that progressive voices were not heard, especially pro-Palestinian voices,” Miller said.

However, he added, Musk is also clearly “vulnerable” to the idea that supporting Palestinian liberation, is the same as hating Jews, so he is vulnerable to that kind of double standard.

In November 2022, the Twitter account of Jisr Collective, supporters of the Liberation of Palestine, was suspended after a pro-Zionist troll falsely claimed the group was a terrorist group actively promoting and celebrating violence against Jews. Musk replied that such posts were not okay and the account was duly suspended.

Miller further stated it is important to remember that Musk's fortune is based in part on huge sums of money from the military-industrial complex.

“That is an anchor for how he will conduct himself,” Miller said, adding that the key thing is that Musk cannot leave that anchor behind because that is where he gets his wealth from.

“He is anchored economically-as opposed to ideologically- to the military-industrial complex, in this case, the military-industrial complex, is predominantly US imperialism,” he said.

Elon Musk, Twitter and Palestine

This episode examines what is known about Elon Musk in relation to Palestine.

From its very inception in 2002, Musk's project SpaceX was very close to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and drawn support and investment from Michael Griffin, President of venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, a CIA operation that cultivates companies to work with the national security state.

Over the years Musk's company has made billions on contracts to transport spy satellites, which aid in drone warfare and the gathering of military intelligence.

One such customer has been US arms firm Lockheed Martin, which gave Musk $500 million in 2018 to launch its GPS system.

Musk also assisted the NATO proxy war in Ukraine by providing his Starlink satellites for use by the Ukrainian military against the Russian army. It is believed the satellites allow the Ukrainian forces to target using thermal imaging even in harsh conditions.

Recently, SpaceX has quietly launched spy satellites for the gathering of military intelligence for an Israeli intelligence company called ImageSat International. The CEO of the company Noam Segal is a current reserve in the Israeli Air Force.

The chief of marketing at the company is Barak Solomin, an active duty officer in the Israeli Air Force. The company is full of former and current Israeli military figures, as well as former employees of the Israeli armed company, Elbit Systems.

Musk's SpaceX Company is portrayed as a benign project that is focused on enhancing our understanding of the solar system and the wider universe. But in fact, it has a role in developing a kind of global surveillance infrastructure.

“I think Twitter and social media, in general, is an unambiguous thing dominated by Western corporations, who have close relationships with both the military-industrial complex, and the [spy] agencies, and thus with Zionist lobby groups,” Miller concluded.

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