OVER THE EDGE

Elon Musk, Trying to ‘Save Civilization’ by Buying Twitter, Lashes Out at Saudis and ‘Those Bastards’ at SEC

In an extraordinary few hours, the world’s richest man attacked kingdom of Saudi Arabia and “those bastards” at the SEC.

Can someone get Elon Musk a little screen-time break? Hours after he launched an unsolicited $54.20 billion takeover bid for Twitter, the world’s richest man spent Thursday evening lashing out at the SEC and Saudi Arabia, humbly claiming he was only trying to save human civilization. At the TED conference in Vancouver, The Times of London reports Musk told the gathering his hostile bid was his way of ensuring for freedom of expression, which he believed was “important to the future of civilization.” “This is not about the economics. The civilizational risk is decreased the more we can increase the trust of Twitter as a public platform,” said the “free speech absolutist” billionaire, who recently attempted to pay a young follower to stop tweeting where he was traveling in his private plane. He then turned his grievances to the Securities & Exchange Commission, calling the U.S. financial regulator as “those bastards” for their oversight of his stock-related tweets since a false 2018 post about taking his Tesla electric-car maker private.

But Musk saved his harshest words for Saudi Arabia, assailing the kingdom’s rulers after its biggest royal investor rejected his attempt to buy the social-media platform. “Being one of the largest & long-term shareholders of Twitter, @Kingdom_KHC & I reject this offer,” Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who owns the Kingdom Holding Co., said Thursday. Musk, who now owns 9.2 percent of Twitter, questioned the Saudi record on free speech. “Interesting,” Musk tweeted. “Just two questions, if I may. How much of Twitter does the Kingdom own, directly & indirectly? What are the Kingdom’s views on journalistic freedom of speech?” KHC says it owns 5.2 percent of the company.