The Charlie Kirk Show - Did Elon Musk Just Check Mate Twitter?

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:02.000 This is producer Andrew filling in, Andrew Colvet.

00:00:05.000 Honored to be behind the microphone today on a very, very packed news day.

00:00:10.000 And leading off, we talk about Elon and his hostile takeover bid of Twitter, what it means, where this story started, where it's going next.

00:00:19.000 Does he have a plan B?

00:00:21.000 And in his own words, we get to hear from Elon with, you know, because he just happened to time this, all this news breaking when he had a TED Talk.

00:00:31.000 So we get to hear some of Elon's own words.

00:00:33.000 Folks, we also invite Jack Pesobic, who was tweeting back and forth with Elon only a few weeks ago about buying Twitter, only to see those very same predictions and tweets come to pass.

00:00:46.000 So you're not going to want to miss this episode.

00:00:48.000 Jack is probably one of the country's most foremost experts on the Twitter controversy on the Twitter saga that's going on, depending on what side you're on.

00:00:56.000 You're not going to want to miss it.

00:00:58.000 Everybody, buckle up.

00:01:00.000 Here we go.

00:01:01.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:01:03.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:01:05.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:01:08.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:11.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:12.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:13.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:01:22.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:31.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:44.000 Elon Musk and his hostile takeover of Twitter, his attempted hostile takeover of Twitter, woke up.

00:01:51.000 This is the first thing I'm seeing tweets and texts from like four in the morning, people instantly telling me what the backstory is, what they saw.

00:02:00.000 One of those people was Jack Pesobic, friend of the show.

00:02:04.000 If you listen to the Charlie Kirk show, you know that Jack is a good friend.

00:02:08.000 He also hosts human events daily, which is powered by Turning Point USA.

00:02:13.000 He's got the backstory.

00:02:14.000 Jack was one of the first people to call this exactly what Twitter is experiencing right now at the hands of Elon Musk, a free speech warrior.

00:02:23.000 Now, I'm not going to wave the pom-poms, if you will, for Elon on everything.

00:02:28.000 But I will say that he is a glitch in the Matrix.

00:02:32.000 This is often how we refer to him on this show.

00:02:34.000 He is a glitch in the Matrix.

00:02:36.000 Why?

00:02:37.000 Because he's not supposed to exist.

00:02:39.000 As Darren Batia from Revolver News often says, he is a, he's one of the last live players on the board.

00:02:45.000 We're going to have Darren back on the show soon to discuss this.

00:02:49.000 He's one of the only world elites that's willing to actually take risks and get into a political arena like this.

00:02:49.000 What does that mean?

00:02:59.000 Most elites are so married to their wealth that they dare not risk their status amongst the rulers of the universe.

00:03:08.000 They dare not risk their invites to the cocktail parties and their boards, their board seats, their Kush life. 0.97

00:03:15.000 Because the richer you become, the higher the stakes.

00:03:18.000 The richer you become, the more breaking from the mold of an elite ruler of the world, the higher, the more expensive breaking becomes.

00:03:28.000 And yet here we have this glitch in the matrix.

00:03:31.000 I think we wrote this morning, $260 billion.

00:03:33.000 He's actually worth closer to $300 billion.

00:03:36.000 He's able to essentially buy, make an offer at $43 billion to acquire Twitter, 100% cash, apparently, for roughly around 12 to 13% of his overall value.

00:03:49.000 Now, that might not seem like much to you, but this would represent one of the single largest philanthropic efforts any individual has ever taken, not just by sheer dollar amounts.

00:04:00.000 Obviously, the dollar's inflated.

00:04:02.000 We know that.

00:04:03.000 Adjusted for inflation.

00:04:05.000 This would represent one of the largest philanthropic, and I do use that word very intentionally, because we have to ask ourselves, and I'm going to read his quote in his letter to the board, well, to the chairman of the board, Brett Taylor, at Twitter.

00:04:20.000 So we have to ask ourselves, what does Elon Musk want?

00:04:24.000 What does he say he wants?

00:04:26.000 Now, I often say this when I get a chance to fill in for Charlie, but we have to say that when somebody shows you who they are, believe them.

00:04:33.000 When somebody tells you who they are, believe them.

00:04:37.000 There's very few other options, really.

00:04:39.000 So who is Elon saying that he is?

00:04:41.000 Because the verdict is admittedly out.

00:04:44.000 We don't actually know everything about how this story is going to play out, obviously.

00:04:48.000 But the jury's out.

00:04:49.000 This is what the letter says.

00:04:50.000 So I'm going to read this letter and then I'm going to ask the question, who does Elon Musk say he is and what does he want and is it good?

00:04:57.000 I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe.

00:05:05.000 And I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.

00:05:10.000 Stop right there.

00:05:11.000 He is 100% right and he is breaking with the rest of the elites.

00:05:17.000 Now you get people like on Twitter.

00:05:18.000 It's an absolute meltdown city on Twitter right now.

00:05:21.000 And it is glorious.

00:05:23.000 I have to say, I'm here for it.

00:05:24.000 I got popcorn, got my coffee, got my water.

00:05:28.000 I'm sitting here taking it all in, watching them melt down.

00:05:31.000 As a matter of fact, just, you know, why we're at it, we heard at 2 p.m., Twitter is going to have an all hands to deal with how Elon has triggered them.

00:05:41.000 All the snowflakes over at Twitter are going to be dealt with.

00:05:44.000 They're going to have a full counseling session.

00:05:47.000 They're going to have crisis counselors on call.

00:05:50.000 It's going to be quite the scene.

00:05:53.000 You know, listen, I was just in the Bay Area.

00:05:55.000 I'm actually really sad that we didn't stay an extra day just so I could see if I could catch some Twitter employees on the way out of their building that's empty.

00:06:02.000 Oh, that's right.

00:06:03.000 Nobody's at Twitter HQ.

00:06:05.000 Elon trolled him on that pretty good as well.

00:06:07.000 He wants to stand up for free speech.

00:06:09.000 Why?

00:06:09.000 Because it's imperative, a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.

00:06:13.000 Amen, yes, and amen, sir.

00:06:15.000 He's absolutely right.

00:06:16.000 And one of the reasons that people are so up in arms about Twitter, about Facebook, about Google, is because they have lost their way.

00:06:25.000 They've lost their vision that they were founded upon.

00:06:28.000 And people like Jack Dorsey, who founded Twitter, have acknowledged this.

00:06:32.000 He regrets, he says, his role in essentially ruining and corporatizing the internet.

00:06:38.000 Let's continue.

00:06:39.000 However, since making my investment, I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form.

00:06:46.000 Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company, says Musk.

00:06:50.000 As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced.

00:07:06.000 My offer is my best and final offer, and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.

00:07:13.000 Twitter has extraordinary potential.

00:07:16.000 I will unlock it.

00:07:18.000 Phenomenal, phenomenal move.

00:07:20.000 This has the potential of being something real.

00:07:23.000 When I talk about the cynicism affecting America, when I talk about the cynicism affecting the younger people of this country that I just got to see up close and personal at UC Berkeley, it is because nothing ever really seems to change.

00:07:40.000 And for them, it was getting Biden elected and nothing really changed, right?

00:07:43.000 For us, maybe it was that we got Trump in office, didn't get the wall built, and look what we have now.

00:07:50.000 Whatever it is, real change is hard to see.

00:07:53.000 And in this glimpse of an opportunity at a hostile takeover, which has a very good chance of affecting real change, we see hope.

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00:09:17.000 What's also breaking is that Twitter shareholder Saudi Prince Al-Waleed rejects Musk's bid to take over platform.

00:09:26.000 In his tweet, he said that it's much too low, given the intrinsic value and growth potential of Twitter, which is an interesting place to land on.

00:09:40.000 He only probably thinks that it has intrinsic value and growth prospects because of the recent stock increase that Elon Musk has helped inspire.

00:09:51.000 Now, let's get into this.

00:09:52.000 I want to play some sound here while we're kind of building this out a little bit more.

00:09:57.000 Cut 75, CBS reports.

00:09:59.000 Just let's lay the foundation.

00:10:01.000 Play Cut 75.

00:10:02.000 Elon Musk, the world's richest man, wants to buy Twitter.

00:10:06.000 All 100% of it.

00:10:08.000 In a letter to Twitter's chairman, Musk wrote, I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe.

00:10:16.000 And I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.

00:10:20.000 He also wrote, Twitter has extraordinary potential.

00:10:23.000 I will unlock it.

00:10:25.000 And he also said, I have no faith in the current management to make that happen.

00:10:32.000 It must go private.

00:10:34.000 Now, what's interesting about this is that as left-wing Twitter implodes, you've now put them in a very ironic position where they are going to be forced to defend a Saudi prince for defending free speech.

00:10:52.000 They are in a pickle.

00:10:53.000 They have completely collapsed on their own logic, their own failed logic.

00:10:58.000 This will be really fun to watch, folks.

00:11:00.000 So keep a lookout for that.

00:11:02.000 That's going to be really, really fun to watch in the midst of all this.

00:11:05.000 So the question then becomes, and we're going to bring Jack Pesobic on in the next segment to really dive into this, but let's play this out.

00:11:11.000 What are the scenarios that happen here?

00:11:14.000 What are the potential outcomes that we need to be thinking about?

00:11:17.000 Now, you've just seen that a shareholder of 5% of Twitter has rejected the offer.

00:11:24.000 Now, rejecting the offer means that they have to be able to present to their shareholders, to the rest of Twitter shareholders, that they have a fiduciary responsibility to manage the company well, that this is in their financial best interest.

00:11:40.000 Now, if that happens, guess what's going to happen?

00:11:43.000 Twitter stock is going to tumble back down to a very low point if that happens.

00:11:49.000 One of the potential outcomes here, if they reject Musk's offer outright, is that they will then, shareholders will then have an opportunity to sue.

00:11:59.000 In which case, many of the board members would then be reinstated potentially.

00:12:03.000 Or, sorry, removed, and then they would be replaced.

00:12:07.000 That's the right way to say it.

00:12:08.000 These are potential outcomes here because you have to understand they have to do what's in the best interest of the shareholders.

00:12:14.000 This may be a communist rag, top to bottom, inside and out. 0.66

00:12:18.000 This is still an American company that has to uphold American laws.

00:12:22.000 That would be an opportunity.

00:12:24.000 Most of the analysis that I'm seeing is saying that, regardless, Elon's already won.

00:12:30.000 He's gamed this out three or four steps in advance, and he's already won, regardless of whether he takes over the company, regardless of whether he brings in somebody like Peter Thiel, ups the bid again.

00:12:41.000 Can you imagine the imploding minds if he brings in somebody like Peter Thial just for fun?

00:12:46.000 There are about four different moves that he still has on the board.

00:12:49.000 Meanwhile, Twitter's leadership is panicking.

00:12:53.000 We're already getting signals that they have rejected the offer.

00:12:55.000 So the question becomes: has he already checkmated them?

00:12:58.000 Did he already play this out?

00:13:00.000 Did he already game this out in such a way where Twitter is effectively over in its current leadership form?

00:13:08.000 Look, everybody, I know you love freedom and you want to defend it.

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00:14:29.000 But without further ado, we are joined by Jack Pisobic, host of Human Events Daily, powered by TPUSA.

00:14:37.000 Jack Pisobic, welcome to the show.

00:14:39.000 Andrew, thanks so much for having me on again, man.

00:14:41.000 Absolutely.

00:14:41.000 It's always an honor, Jack.

00:14:42.000 You're a good friend.

00:14:43.000 You're very, very up on this, this Elon Musk story, which we've been talking about all hour.

00:14:50.000 I have my own theories about what he's playing at here, about the chess match that's unfolding.

00:14:56.000 I hate to use the cliche, the three-dimensional chess, but it certainly seems apt here.

00:15:01.000 Jack, you have the backstory.

00:15:04.000 You know how some of these details came to be.

00:15:06.000 You were one of the first people on Twitter that sort of was calling for this.

00:15:10.000 You and Cernovich were going back and forth.

00:15:13.000 I mean, it's a really amazing thing.

00:15:14.000 I want you to tell the audience.

00:15:15.000 I don't want to spill the beans.

00:15:16.000 It's your story to tell.

00:15:18.000 What do you know, Jack?

00:15:19.000 Yeah, so, I mean, we did have that back and forth with Elon on March 26th, and we put the tweet thread up.

00:15:28.000 You know, kind of we're having a discussion in Elon's mentions about some of these censorship areas that Twitter has gotten into, centering conservatives for their viewpoints, but at the same time, allowing false information to fly, whether it's for the Covington kids or Jussie Smollett or, you know, anything that's going on in government, overseas, the foreign policy sphere, right?

00:15:52.000 All this false stuff comes down, except for anything that you say that's in a conservative vein, that's what gets censored.

00:16:00.000 And Elon said it feels a little unbalanced.

00:16:02.000 And then I responded, you should buy Twitter and take it private.

00:16:07.000 Now here we are three weeks later, and he's doing just that.

00:16:10.000 We also found out in the backstory that as he was tweeting about that and as we were having that exchange, he was behind the scenes already purchasing up shares of Twitter.

00:16:23.000 Now, one of the names that I want people to understand, what are the names that people need to hear in all of this is Alex Spyro.

00:16:30.000 And you're seeing Alex Spyro commented on as the lawyer, the spokesman for Elon Musk in this purchase and a few of his other ventures.

00:16:38.000 Alex Spyro is one of the heavy hitters out of New York when it comes to these MA deals.

00:16:45.000 He is one of the top dogs.

00:16:46.000 He's a pipe hitter when it comes to this stuff.

00:16:48.000 So when I saw Alex Spyro's name was attached to this thing, I knew right from the bat, right from the get-go, that Elon Musk was serious.

00:16:58.000 And what I hear, and you can also read between the lines of Elon's letter to the board of Twitter this morning, that originally he just wanted a seat at the table.

00:17:07.000 He just wanted a seat at the table and to have influence with Twitter and with its board.

00:17:12.000 He didn't want to do the hostile takeover right away.

00:17:14.000 But because of the way that he was treated by the management of Twitter, so you remember in the very first instance, after he said he was buying the 9% stake, the management of Twitter puts out this huge statement, Donald Trump will not be allowed back on.

00:17:26.000 And Elon's like, wait a minute, I'm not even in the room yet.

00:17:29.000 What are you doing?

00:17:30.000 And then they're putting all these restrictions on and saying, you need to take a background test and you need to cap yourself to 15%.

00:17:37.000 And oh, by the way, they were also going to put a restriction.

00:17:39.000 And I don't think this has been reported yet, but we talk about it today on Human Events Daily on the podcast that they were putting a restriction in place on him that he couldn't discuss Twitter on the Twitter platform while he sat on the board.

00:17:55.000 And obviously, that was going to be a hard no from Elon because that flies in the face of everything that he's trying to do.

00:18:00.000 And so because of that, he went back to Spyro, went back to his advisors and said, you know what?

00:18:05.000 I'm done.

00:18:06.000 Buy the whole thing.

00:18:07.000 Just buy it outright.

00:18:08.000 I don't want to play this game.

00:18:10.000 They want to treat me like that.

00:18:11.000 Then I'm just going to come up and we're going to buy the whole thing.

00:18:13.000 We're going to give them more.

00:18:14.000 And by the way, so we're now seeing that the Twitter board, so they're a public company.

00:18:19.000 So this triggers an independent committee of the board has to be set up whenever you get what's called a tender offer.

00:18:24.000 And that's what Elon's done.

00:18:26.000 However, they brought in Goldman to advise them that the price is too low.

00:18:30.000 Zero Hedge just has the tweet up where they went back to Goldman's valuation of Twitter from Q4 last year, so December of last year, and they said that it should be a sell, right?

00:18:40.000 That they value Twitter, that you should sell between 30 and 36 price target.

00:18:45.000 Elon's almost offering double of that.

00:18:47.000 So Twitter, they're in a little bit of a bind right now because it turns out the math is actually on Elon's side.

00:18:54.000 And if they don't take this deal, you better believe he's going to be vocal about it on his Twitter account.

00:19:00.000 So he actually kind of has them between a rock and a hard place.

00:19:04.000 And I don't even think they realize it yet.

00:19:05.000 That is a remarkable revelation.

00:19:08.000 I love Zero Hedge.

00:19:10.000 A big fan, big fan.

00:19:12.000 They do some great work, especially when it comes to financial topics.

00:19:16.000 They are typically way ahead of the curve and kind of, you know, some people call them fringe.

00:19:21.000 They've had their own Twitter issues, but they are very, that's a very smart group that runs that.

00:19:27.000 Okay, so Jack, you just said something that's very, very important.

00:19:30.000 Twitter is working with, the leadership of Twitter is working with Goldman.

00:19:35.000 December, you said, 2021.

00:19:38.000 Goldman said it was a sell at what price?

00:19:42.000 Price target of 30.

00:19:44.000 30.

00:19:45.000 And what price did Elon Musk just make as an offer on Twitter?

00:19:50.000 The number everybody remembers, 5420.

00:19:52.000 5420.

00:19:54.000 I've seen that written up.

00:19:54.000 That's right.

00:19:56.000 He has a history of this.

00:19:57.000 Didn't he try to make Tesla private at $420 a share?

00:20:01.000 Right, exactly.

00:20:02.000 It's all sort of this troll of his Joe Rogan, his famous image of him, I guess, smoking weed with Joe Rogan.

00:20:09.000 Very, very specific number there, Ms. Franklin.

00:20:11.000 Yeah, it's a very, very specific number.

00:20:13.000 For any of the folks that don't know, just Google 420.

00:20:17.000 Okay.

00:20:17.000 Which I was surprised that he didn't make the offer 42.0 million or a billion.

00:20:23.000 Interesting.

00:20:24.000 Probably a missed opportunity.

00:20:26.000 Here's the thing.

00:20:29.000 What's very critical to understand here, though, folks, is that there is a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders of Twitter to make them as much money as they can, right?

00:20:39.000 To look out for the financial best interests.

00:20:41.000 No, no, this is what people don't get.

00:20:43.000 This isn't something where Twitter can just turn around and say no, right?

00:20:46.000 They are required to do this as a publicly held company.

00:20:49.000 They're required to do this.

00:20:51.000 They have to shop the offer around.

00:20:52.000 And I guarantee you.

00:20:53.000 So Saudi Prince Alawid, by the way, who was arrested by MBS a while back.

00:20:59.000 I guess he's back on Twitter.

00:21:00.000 I thought he was driving an Uber or something.

00:21:03.000 But I guess he's back on Twitter now.

00:21:05.000 And he's saying that we reject the offer and it's too low, right?

00:21:08.000 Well, the problem is you're not going to get a better offer than this.

00:21:13.000 So you've got to shop the bargain.

00:21:14.000 You've got to shop it around, see if you can get a better deal.

00:21:17.000 They're not going to get a better deal.

00:21:18.000 So what they might try to do is stand up someone to say, even if it's not completely, you know, completely fought through, they're going to stand up someone to say, oh, well, I'm offering 80 billion, right?

00:21:30.000 Find some other billionaire to come in and offer 80 because they probably want 100. 0.96

00:21:34.000 They probably want 100. 0.63

00:21:36.000 Who's going to do that?

00:21:37.000 Without Elon, you know, with the competing bid, I mean, exactly.

00:21:41.000 So you've already got the number one, you know, the most, the wealthiest man in the world.

00:21:45.000 And plus, by the way, if Elon wants to, and I've seen other people were talking about this, if he wants to, he could enlist the ape army. 0.92

00:21:53.000 And if people know what the ape army is, these were the retail investors that were behind the meme stocks, behind Dogecoin, behind AMC and GameStop. 0.73

00:22:01.000 He could get all those people on board.

00:22:04.000 So if they reject the offer, he could still get all of these people on board and then pledge their proxy votes to Elon.

00:22:11.000 Exactly.

00:22:12.000 So he could still keep in mind, this isn't the hostile takeover.

00:22:15.000 This is a sweetheart deal.

00:22:16.000 This is actually a sweetheart deal.

00:22:18.000 And so it puts them in a bind from a fiduciary responsibility, you're 100% right perspective to have to take the deal.

00:22:25.000 Because if they don't, Elon, number one, he's threatening to tank the stock already.

00:22:28.000 He says, if you do not take this deal, I believe that my shares are overvaluated, which means he's going to pull out.

00:22:36.000 And we all know what's going to happen to Twitter stock if he pulls out.

00:22:39.000 And they know, all right.

00:22:40.000 And he's saying, basically, take it or tank it.

00:22:43.000 You take it or I tank it.

00:22:45.000 Here's what people need to understand as well, Jack, is that the publicly traded company is supposed to already reflect the market valuation for that stock, right?

00:22:55.000 In theory, it represents the value.

00:22:59.000 Yeah, this is the corporate pitch for how the stock market is supposed to work.

00:23:02.000 Right.

00:23:03.000 It's supposed to work, right?

00:23:05.000 So what he's saying is I'm giving you a premium on where that is.

00:23:10.000 These people are saying, well, the Saudi Prince is saying, hey, it's actually undervalued, even though Twitter just skyrocketed in price.

00:23:20.000 So what they're going to do here, Jack, is they're going to say, well, look at what the price tag was for the stock at its high watermark in February 2021.

00:23:28.000 It was actually at $77.06.

00:23:31.000 Well, what's happened since the stock plummeted from $77.06, $77.06 in February 2021.

00:23:39.000 Rampant censorship of conservatives.

00:23:42.000 You've had the emergence of actual viable competitors in the space, right?

00:23:47.000 Yeah, maybe they're not.

00:23:49.000 you know, full of left-wingers, but apps like Getter, platforms like Getter, which you are very active on, which Charlie Kirk is very active on.

00:23:57.000 Yeah, look, getter as well.

00:23:59.000 I mean, it's one of those things where if this deal doesn't go through, you know, people are just going to move together.

00:24:04.000 They're going to say, if this, this is like the last shot for Twitter.

00:24:07.000 And for a lot of people out there, and not even just conservatives, but people who are independent-minded, people who just want to have a conversation, people want to be able to debate things that are, you know, they see things coming across their screen.

00:24:17.000 They see the news.

00:24:17.000 They say, hey, I want to debate this, whether it's vaccines or whether it's Russia or whatever, you know, whatever the topic of the day is, they'd like to be able to have serious and substantive debate on it.

00:24:27.000 And that's the rub with all of this, because Elon Musk isn't saying that he wants to own Twitter.

00:24:32.000 He's saying he wants to liberate Twitter and restore it to its place of a global forum for freedom of speech.

00:24:39.000 And that is terrifying to the powers that be and terrifying to the regime.

00:24:43.000 They will throw everything they possibly can at Elon, because keep in mind that a lot of his money is derived from government contracts, at least here in the United States.

00:24:52.000 He's also got ties to the CCP, and I'm not blind to that, right?

00:24:57.000 His factories, by the way, in Shanghai right now are down because of the lockdowns.

00:25:00.000 So they're going to go after, you remember there was that series of Tesla tweets that was out about whether he's taking it private, not taking it private.

00:25:07.000 The SEC is going to look into that.

00:25:09.000 They're also going to potentially look into his SpaceX contracts, right?

00:25:13.000 All of these deals that he has with NASA.

00:25:15.000 And so Aaron Sorkin went on Morning Joe, sloppy morning Joe this morning today.

00:25:20.000 And Joe suddenly is talking about Section 230 reform.

00:25:23.000 Oh, wait, there might be a problem if the billionaire doesn't agree with me.

00:25:27.000 Oh, wow.

00:25:27.000 It's almost like exactly the position that conservatives have been saying for years, Joe, for years.

00:25:32.000 He suddenly found Jesus on it.

00:25:34.000 So they are going to throw everything.

00:25:37.000 They're going to throw everything at Elon.

00:25:39.000 This is, and I don't know if he realizes it.

00:25:42.000 I don't know if he realizes it.

00:25:43.000 It's not just a financial question because it's a question fundamentally of political power in this country and political geopolitical power around the world.

00:25:52.000 No, I think you're absolutely right.

00:25:54.000 And I think what makes this moment so stunning is that people like Elon are not supposed to exist.

00:26:00.000 He is a glitch in the elites matrix.

00:26:03.000 He's not supposed to be willing to take this type of political risk.

00:26:09.000 Look, there's so much political pressure out there from the left and the woke mob, and it's from the Democrat Party.

00:26:14.000 Our society has ultimately been controlled by cancel cultural elites.

00:26:18.000 Look, we talk openly on this program about what you need to do.

00:26:23.000 And so I am involved.

00:26:25.000 I am invested personally and also through the Charlie Kirk show to try to do everything we possibly can to try and push back against these Democrats and their lies.

00:26:35.000 And so look, you can get a signed picture by President Trump himself.

00:26:38.000 Look, I vetted this.

00:26:39.000 It's terrific.

00:26:40.000 And not only will you be taking a stand against the radical left, you'll be entering the winner piece of history itself.

00:26:46.000 All you have to do is text the word victory to 55404 today to enter.

00:26:51.000 That's V-I-C-T-O-R-Y to 55404.

00:26:55.000 Join me in standing up for President Trump and canceling the radical left.

00:26:59.000 Look, here's what we're really doing, though.

00:27:00.000 We're building a grassroots army to push back to try to win the Senate race in Georgia, try to win the Senate race in Arizona.

00:27:06.000 This is paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

00:27:09.000 And I could tell you this, we have got to retire Chuck Schumer.

00:27:12.000 So text right now to win a signed picture with President Trump, V-I-C-T-O-R-Y 55404.

00:27:19.000 Take out your phone right now, free of charge.

00:27:22.000 V-I-C-T-O-R-Y-55404.

00:27:28.000 I want to play one cut here, Cut77, and I want to then read a tweet from Max Boot, and I want to get your take on what exactly they're so afraid of.

00:27:38.000 Cut 77.

00:27:39.000 But at the Washington Post, they served up something slightly different, a little more stealthy.

00:27:43.000 They enlisted the former CEO of Reddit, an activist mediocrity called Ellen Powell, who couldn't manage to actually run Reddit, to write an op-ed with this title, quote, Elon Musk's vision of free speech will be bad for Twitter.

00:27:56.000 And then the piece contained this line.

00:27:58.000 Now, this line doesn't so much reveal a lack of self-awareness as it does commit murder against the entire concept they're trying to support.

00:28:05.000 And here's what it is, quote, Musk's appointment to Twitter's board shows that we need regulation of social media platforms to prevent rich people from controlling our channels of communication.

00:28:15.000 That's something.

00:28:17.000 I needed a moment there.

00:28:18.000 Here's the tweet.

00:28:19.000 I know.

00:28:20.000 Here's the tweet from Max Boot.

00:28:22.000 I am frightened by the impact on society and politics, Jack.

00:28:26.000 If Elon Musk acquires Twitter, he seems to believe that on the social media, anything goes for democracy to survive.

00:28:33.000 We need more content moderation, not less.

00:28:36.000 Jack, what are they so afraid of?

00:28:38.000 Look, they're afraid of what Marshall McLuhan warned about all the way back in the 1960s.

00:28:45.000 The medium is the message.

00:28:49.000 So, of course, you got the Washington Post owned by Jeff Bezos, right?

00:28:53.000 The Bezosian Post.

00:28:55.000 But that's the second richest man in the world.

00:28:58.000 You've got The Atlantic, which is essentially owned by Steve Jobs' widow, the Globe and Mail, owned by Canada's richest manned, and the New York Times that at one point that was financially backed by Carlos Swim of Mexico.

00:29:10.000 And so what you have here isn't so much a, you know, this, they're making this argument about freedom of speech, right?

00:29:18.000 But what this really is is an oligarch fight.

00:29:20.000 So congratulations.

00:29:21.000 We're going full mask off at this point.

00:29:23.000 You live in an oligarchy, and it's certainly an oligarchy when it comes to communication because who controls communication controls the flow of public opinion, and the flow of public opinion then informs democracy.

00:29:34.000 So Mass Democracy comes with, of course, the Washington Post has this in their title, which we're told, Democracy Dies in Darkness, was it's very, obviously very cheesy, kind of cliched and very 1984 sounding.

00:29:45.000 Jeff Bezos came up with it himself.

00:29:48.000 And then the rest of the board said, sure, we'll go with that.

00:29:50.000 Sure, you pay our bills.

00:29:51.000 No problem, Moss.

00:29:52.000 And so what McLuhan pointed out, though, and just to finish my point, those are all outlets of information, yet Twitter is a medium of information.

00:30:03.000 So if Twitter is the medium by which, you know, it's the network, it's the channel, it's the space where all these things are able to compete and able to be debated, they're telling you that their version of democracy only works if you silence all opposition and all dissenting voices.

00:30:21.000 Yeah, I think you're spot on on this, Jack.

00:30:24.000 I think what the oligarchs, what the elites are realizing is that their message is failing.

00:30:32.000 I mean, look at this Quinnipiak poll that just came out.

00:30:35.000 I mean, this is, Jack, he's got an approval rating of 33% according to this poll.

00:30:40.000 They realize that if they lose even the mechanisms of the delivery of speech like Twitter, that it is, that is such a ruling class platform that they're really dead in the water.

00:30:52.000 Now, you are often on one of our friends' shows, Bannon's War Room.

00:30:57.000 He calls this an extinction-level event, right?

00:30:59.000 I mean, this really could be an existential crisis amongst the rulers of the universe here.

00:31:06.000 Do you think?

00:31:06.000 Well, Andrew, that's exactly why I'm saying that for them, they realize what this is.

00:31:12.000 And we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what the response is going to be because what you've got here is a rogue oligarch, right?

00:31:19.000 You've got a rogue elite, someone who's not playing off the same playbook.

00:31:24.000 He's not one of us.

00:31:25.000 You're supposed to just drive your electric cars.

00:31:28.000 You can get some space contracts, but stay in your lane.

00:31:32.000 Elon's not doing that.

00:31:33.000 He's not staying in his lane.

00:31:35.000 And he says that there are things that he cares about more.

00:31:38.000 And this is a power move, by the way, by Generation X.

00:31:40.000 And I've talked about this a little bit on Human Events Daily, where Generation X is typically seen as this sort of, you know, the don't tell me what to do generation.

00:31:48.000 They reject authority.

00:31:49.000 They're rebels.

00:31:50.000 You know, this is the generation of Kurt Cobain.

00:31:52.000 It's the generation of Joe Rogan, the generation of Jack Dorsey, the original creator of Twitter, and also, of course, the generation of Elon Musk.

00:31:59.000 And so time and time again, what you see them doing is rejecting authority.

00:32:05.000 And so for him to make this move, it's because the woke authority and the woke tyranny has gotten too much.

00:32:12.000 Jack, I could go on and on with you about this.

00:32:14.000 I wish we had more time.

00:32:15.000 But I'm just going to make a prediction here that Elon Musk has already checkmated Twitter, the leadership of Twitter, and I cannot wait to see where it goes.

00:32:23.000 It looks like Elon is speaking out.

00:32:26.000 He is now going on the record about his Twitter attempted hostile takeover of Twitter, which is just, can I just say again, it's so much fun to watch.

00:32:34.000 Let's play Cut 89.

00:32:36.000 And a good sign as to whether there's free speech is, is someone you don't like allowed to say something you don't like?

00:32:46.000 And if that is the case, then we have free speech.

00:32:49.000 And it's damn annoying when someone you don't like says something you don't like.

00:32:54.000 That is a sign of a healthy, functioning free speech situation.

00:33:00.000 Where someone you don't like says something you don't like and it's allowed to happen.

00:33:04.000 That is a very simple and a very powerful way to say it.

00:33:09.000 Now, here's the thing: there's a difference between compelled speech, right?

00:33:13.000 This is why I am in favor of things like the anti-grooming bill in Florida.

00:33:20.000 It's saying, teachers, you don't have the right as instruments of the state to teach children about sexualization, gender identity, and things like that.

00:33:29.000 These things belong in the power of the people through their vote and through their legislators, through the representative.

00:33:35.000 That is compelled speech.

00:33:37.000 If a teacher forces a child to listen to certain things, to listen to their indoctrination, to their ideologies about whatever, right?

00:33:44.000 Now, we're willing as a society to give them wide berth on a lot of topics.

00:33:49.000 But when it comes to sexualization, we've said in Florida at least, the people of Florida have said via their representatives that we do not support that.

00:33:56.000 So I want to make this very clear because a lot of the argument comes back on conservatives say, yo, you're anti-free speech.

00:34:02.000 I thought you were pro-free speech, conservatives.

00:34:06.000 And it's like, yes, we are.

00:34:07.000 But free speech is a willing speaker and a willing listener.

00:34:12.000 So even on Twitter, you're saying, well, you know, saying something they don't like.

00:34:16.000 Well, you could turn them off.

00:34:17.000 You could block them.

00:34:18.000 That's part of the Twitter landscape.

00:34:20.000 But not as a platform.

00:34:21.000 We're saying it's a platform.

00:34:23.000 You shouldn't be blocking people.

00:34:24.000 But individual users can block people from following them in this and that.

00:34:27.000 That's free speech in action.

00:34:30.000 Elon Musk also says in clip 88 that he believes that it is his strong intuitive sense, which I love, that having a public forum that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is critical to the future of civilization.

00:34:47.000 CUD 88.

00:34:48.000 My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization.

00:35:05.000 But you've described yourself.

00:35:07.000 I don't care about the economics at all.

00:35:10.000 Okay, that's cool to hear.

00:35:11.000 I didn't see that last part and I had not heard that part.

00:35:14.000 I don't care about the economics at all.

00:35:18.000 What you are seeing is a man that...

00:35:21.000 I mean, that's powerful.

00:35:23.000 I apologize if I'm reacting on the fly here.

00:35:26.000 He doesn't care about the economics at all.

00:35:28.000 That is a powerful statement.

00:35:31.000 You know, I started today's show by saying that when somebody tells you who they are, somebody shows you what they are, you have no choice but to take them at their word and by their actions and by their deeds.

00:35:45.000 Elon Musk, we always knew he was a great entrepreneur.

00:35:50.000 We did not know if he was attempting to do great things.

00:35:54.000 The last couple weeks in Elon's activities, the things that he is saying, reveal much about the man.

00:36:03.000 And should his efforts at taking over Twitter ultimately prove successful, I believe that it will be in the hands of a benevolent force for good and for free speech, at least insofar as free speech is concerned.

00:36:19.000 Now, I have my issues with Elon.

00:36:21.000 I'm not saying I don't.

00:36:22.000 But in those areas, I think that this will be a vast improvement upon the status quo.

00:36:30.000 Thanks, everybody, for tuning in.

00:36:31.000 Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.

00:36:33.000 It went quick.

00:36:33.000 I can tell you recording it.

00:36:35.000 Folks, the Twitter story is just getting started.

00:36:37.000 We're at the middle of it.

00:36:38.000 Charlie's still suspended from Twitter.

00:36:40.000 Will he be brought back on if Twitter is under the control of Elon Musk?

00:36:45.000 I would happen to think so.

00:36:47.000 So let's see where this plays out.

00:36:48.000 We'll be staying very much attuned to it.

00:36:51.000 Thanks so much, guys.

00:36:52.000 We'll talk to you soon.

00:36:55.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - April 14, 2022

Did Elon Musk Just Check Mate Twitter?

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