Following the announcement that Elon Musk has reached a deal to purchase Twitter for $44 billion (£37bn), Cate Blanchett is the latest celebrity to speak out about the SpaceX founder’s buyout.
This comes after Jameela Jamil announced she was leaving Twitter, commenting that Musk’s emphasis on ‘free speech’ in his plans for Twitter were set to ‘help this hell platform reach its final form of totally lawless hate, bigotry, and misogyny’.
Now, Don’t Look Up and Nightmare Alley star Cate Blanchett has given her two pennies’ worth on the world’s richest man’s pricey new purchase.
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Speaking to Variety at the Chaplin Award Gala in New York on Monday, 25 April, the A-lister said of Musk’s takeover: “It’s dangerous. That’s all I have to say, it’s very, very dangerous.”
Several concerns have been voiced following news of Musk’s deal to purchase Twitter, one of the foremost worries being that former POTUS Donald Trump could be invited back to the platform after his account was ‘permanently suspended’ in January 2021 due to ‘the risk of further incitement of violence’ following the Capitol riots.
Trump, for his part, has said he wouldn’t return to Twitter and would stick to his own social platform, TRUTH.
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He told Fox News: “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH.”
Musk’s critics also recalled an exchange between the Tesla CEO and the director of the United Nations World Food Programme David Beasley, in which Musk appeared to promise to solve world hunger if Beasley provided a workable way to do so with $6 billion (£4.7bn).
Many felt in the context of these comments the $44bn Musk splashed on buying the social media giant could have been put to better use in funding humanitarian projects.
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Marvel star Simu Liu – known for portraying martial arts master Shang-Chi – also felt Musk could have spent his money more wisely.
He tweeted: “Was there nothing better to do with 44 billion dollars?”
Liu’s comments were met with a mixed response. One user recalled Musk’s exchange with Beasley and tweeted: “Solving world hunger several times over would have been nice.”
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Others, however, felt it was up to Musk how he spent his hard-earned cash, with one writing: “You earn $44 billion and you can choose what to do with it. Or should we have someone follow you around scrutinizing every one of your purchases?”
It seems the controversy surrounding Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is only just beginning.
Despite agreeing not to disparage Twitter or its representatives as part of his deal to buy the company, Musk has already been engaging with tweets slamming Twitter’s legal head Vijaya Gadde and Twitter’s deputy general counsel Jim Baker, the former for censoring a 2020 New York Post article on Joe Biden’s son Hunter and the latter for his previous role at the FBI.
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Simon Fearn