Musk Tells Rogan the Real Reason He Bought Twitter: 'This Is Going to Sound Melodramatic'
Elon Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan Oct. 31 that he bought Twitter to remove its “mind virus” from the world.
“I mean, this is going to sound somewhat melodramatic, but I was worried that it was having a corrosive effect on civilization,” Musk said on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast posted to X.
“That it was having a bad impact and, I mean, part of it is that it’s where it was located, which is, you know, downtown San Francisco.
“And while I think San Francisco is a beautiful city and we should really fight hard to kind of right the ship of San Francisco, if you walk around downtown San Francisco, right near the X, a.k.a. Twitter, headquarters, it’s a zombie apocalypse.
“I mean, it’s rough,” Musk said.
The “mind virus” comments start about the 25:29 mark of the video below. Rogan is costumed for Halloween, but the topic is deadly serious:
Podcast with the great and powerful @elonmusk #ad Full episode is 2 hours and 41 minutes, first 2 hours is available here on https://t.co/AIkGSaxVMA pic.twitter.com/DQh0GGNyaO
— Joe Rogan (@joerogan) October 31, 2023
“Have you been there?” he asked Rogan.
“Not lately, no,” Rogan replied. “I’ve heard.”
“It’s crazy,” Musk said.
“You can’t believe it until you go there.”
The woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 12, 2022
Musk said it was not mere chance that the city has fallen so far.
“So now you have to say, well, what philosophy led to that outcome? And that philosophy was being piped to Earth,” he said.
“So, you know, a philosophy that would be ordinarily quite niche and geographically constrained, so that the fallout area would be limited, was effectively given an information weapon, an information technology weapon to propagate what is essentially a mind virus to the rest of Earth,” Musk said.
“The outcome of that mind virus is very clear if you walk around the streets of downtown San Francisco. It is the end of civilization,” he said.
After Rogan noted that it suppressed dissenting viewpoints, Musk responded that, “In order for the virus to propagate, it must suppress opposing viewpoints.”
“I mean, you’ve felt the virus,” Musk told Rogan. “People have tried to cancel you so many times.”
“Yeah, it’s fascinating. I don’t think you’re melodramatic at all,” Rogan said.
In April, Musk told “Real Time” host Bill Maher that he worried about the impact of the “woke mind virus” on young people, according to the New York Post.
“I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti-meritocratic and anything that results in the suppression of free speech,” Musk said.
“So, you know, those are two other aspects of the woke mind virus that I think are very dangerous is that it’s anti-meritocratic. You can’t question things. Even the questioning is bad.”
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