Reactions to the Mere Suggestion Elon Musk Might Buy Up Twitter are Positively Bonkers

American culture has a long and inglorious history of evil billionaires hatching diabolical, audacious plots to enrich themselves further. Lex Luthor buying up western Nevada and sinking California into the Pacific so he’ll own waterfront property. Montgomery Burns blotting out the sun so Springfield will need more nuclear power. Jerry Jones … we’ll, just being Jerry Jones.

But where we’ve always expected our corporate despots to come up with evil schemes at are ambitious. Elaborate. Preposterous. Something worthy of their insatiable greed. But today? All it takes is for a eccentric entrepreneur like Elon Musk to hint that he might buy up a social media platform and allow more free expression and people lose their minds. Musk has the pro-censorship population of the Twitterverse competing to see who’s panicked overreaction can be the most shook:

The thing I find most jarring about this – aside from, you know, the end of Democracy, World War III, and the destruction of our planet — is that if you told these people years ago that there would be a place where ordinary people could reach a worldwide audience with their thoughts and opinions, it was being purchased by the worlds leading manufacturer of electric vehicles, who is working on a way to advance the human race to explore and colonize space, and who just moved his satellites so an invaded nation could communicate and defend themselves, they’d have signed on for that. And if you told them he’s an immigrant from Africa, they’d have probably asked where they can donate to make it happen.

But the issue is with this particular visionary/entrepreneur/philanthropist. Because he has expressed the opinion that free-speech is a good thing. And that, I guess, is where we draw the line? Like if Musk had said “When I take over I am going to damn well dictate to everyone what is acceptable speech and what is not,” the same Blue Checks would be leading the cheers. Instead, it is Armageddon. The End of Days. Life as we know it is over as soon as he becomes CEO.

If for no other reason than it will push these crackpots over the edge, we need this to happen. Make it so, Elon. I’ll get the popcorn ready.