There has been a political earthquake: Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter.Financially, it’s the same offer as a week ago — $54.20 in cash. A transaction valued at $44 billion. A 38 percent premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1. Twitter will become a privately held company. It’s great for the shareholders. So, financially this is terrific. The earthquake is really political. The idea that conservatives will no longer be kept off Twitter — which with its 250 million participants is of course highly influential — is, well, very cool. Elon Musk said earlier today: “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 …. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”Wonderful, Mr. Musk, just wonderful. So, besides democracy-enhancing freedom of speech, we might even learn what was inside those silly, shady shenanigan algorithms that kept free speech off twitter. I have praised Elon Musk time and again for his libertarian, limited-government, common-sense freedom agenda. This move to purchase Twitter becomes the crown jewel achievement for him — not to downgrade Tesla electric cars or SpaceX, which themselves are tremendous achievements.As I said earlier, this move to acquire Twitter is a political earthquake. It is one of the rare free speech victories — probably the only free speech victory — in the rigged world of social media. My only regret is, he didn’t buy Facebook. Who knows, though: Maybe Peter Thiel or somebody like that who believes in free speech and conservative principles might go after Facebook, or Google, or other phony left-wing media outlets. Only seven months before the midterm elections, when the cavalry’s coming with a red wave. I don’t know what the left is going to do. I can hear them right now, grinding their teeth.Get ready for the Elon Musk hit pieces from the usual suspects like the New York Times. The NAACP completely lost its mind in a press release attack on Mr. Musk. The Washington Post opinion columnists are on the prowl. Elon Musk should wear these attacks as a badge of honor, as a red badge of courage.Hard to say what caused Twitter’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, to change his mind. This guy, who was a public critic of free speech and who was presiding over the demise of Twitter’s share price and its entire business, at first tried to stop Mr. Musk with a poison pill. Then he folded like the cheap suit that he is.Maybe we’ll discover what went on inside the Twitter board during talks held last night and in prior days. No one will mourn Parag Agrawal’s passing.Elon Musk is a self-described “free speech absolutist.” We should all be grateful for his contribution to open political discourse. This is also a major blow against the entire wokeism movement. CEOs of woke and non-woke companies beware: The free-market, capitalist system that the woke crowd hates so much is alive and well in America. It is teaching us how to strike back at those who oppose traditional First Amendment values.That Elon Musk used an investment takeover strategy is very important: He’s knocked out a far-left social media platform without the use of big government.There’s an important lesson there for some conservatives as well as the left. Well done, Elon Musk. My hat’s off to you. Save America. Support Elon Musk.From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.
