Is the Musk-Twitter deal indeed a ‘great win’? Here’s what Coinbase CEO thinks

Lavina Daryanani
Source: NPR

The Musk-Twitter acquisition deal was finalized more than a day back, but seems like it’ll take some more time for the reality of the situation to sink in. People from the space were, nonetheless, prompt to react to the said development. Yesterday, for instance, Jack Dorsey and Charles Hoskinson poured in their support by positively opining on the takeover.

In what is the latest development, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has propounded that Twitter was trending in a “very dangerous” direction on censorship and Elon Musk acquiring the platform is a “great win” for free speech.

The Coinbase exec went on to add,

It’s a turn around job, props to him for executing on it and taking on the challenge in a way most people could not even contemplate. Hopefully twitter can be converted to a decentralized protocol over time, which would be the ultimate protection on it being co-opted again.

Armstrong further stated that all kinds of freedom—right from due process, to economic and speech— are worth fighting for. “We need more company standing for freedom. The freedom stack,” he asserted.

Elon Musk and his free speech mantra

It’s a known fact that the Elon Musk has always been an ardent advocate of the free speech philosophy. The Tesla executive essentially calls himself a “free speech absolutist,” and recently declared that “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”

His viewpoint managed to garner a lot of negative traction by people from the other side of the thought spectrum. Tending to the same, Musk took to Twitter to clarify that that he’s “against” censorship that goes beyond the law and his idea of free speech operates within the regulatory perimeter.