It’s been just over a year since Elon Musk tweeted a picture of himself holding a sink in the Silicon Valley headquarters of the world’s most influential social media platform.
Conjuring a dad joke worthy of a man with 11 children, Musk posted: “Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!”
Musk’s actions since finalizing the $44 billion acquisition have more than made up for the opening groaner. During his first year at the helm of the company now known as “X,” Musk has taken several positive steps in line with his initial commitments to restore free speech on the platform.
No doubt, there’s much work to do — including a much-needed elimination and rethink of Musk’s “freedom of speech, not reach” governing philosophy, which we’ll explore below. But it’s fitting to start with a few major highlights from Musk’s first year.
Highlight 1: Exposing Government Pressure to Censor Content
For starters, Musk’s decision to release hundreds of thousands of emails between Twitter employees and officials in the federal government via the “Twitter Files” has had perhaps the most profound effect on restoring the public’s trust.
Tabbing independent journalists like Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Michael Shellenberger as recipients of the email trove, Musk took the gamble that by doing so, he would expose some of the worst examples of the government’s pressure on social media companies to censor. Musk’s gamble paid off. Big time.
Since the first round of reporting went live in early December 2022, the American public
