Fox News contributor Caitlyn Jenner voiced her support Thursday for Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover bid in hopes the Tesla and SpaceX CEO will save the social-media giant from its “woke” employees.
On Wednesday, Musk – who last week purchased a 9.2% stake in the company to become its biggest shareholder – offered to buy the rest of Twitter for $54.20 per share, or $43 billion in total. In a letter to Twitter chairman Bret Taylor, he expressed a desire to take the company private in order to “unlock” its “extraordinary potential.”
“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk wrote. “However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”
During an appearance on Fox News’ “America Reports,” Jenner said she approved of Musk’s takeover attempt, praising his anti-censorship stance. Although she “loves” Twitter and has been using it “for years,” she said the company has recently fallen victim to wokeness.
“This is the way I look at it,” she said. “Right now, social media and so many big companies have become captive to their employees – these woke employees, and this woke movement we have out there.”
She continued: “Twitter does the exact same thing. There’s this woke mentality with their employees. Instead of doing what’s right for the company, they’re doing what they think is right for society and right for their employees. And it’s killing these companies.”
Jenner then claimed that she had been “shadow banned” from the platform, meaning that content she posted was deliberately hidden from other users without her knowledge. Twitter has stated multiple times that it does not shadow ban despite accusations from conservatives.
“[Two weeks ago] I joined Fox News and guess what happened? I got shadow banned on Twitter. My engagements went down dramatically. And I was absolutely shocked,” Jenner said.
“So I hope Elon Musk comes in here and changes this because these woke companies are not going to survive, I don’t think, in the future.”
The billionaire CEO has been a longtime critic of Twitter, especially its moderation of violent and misinformative content. Twitter inflamed conservatives when Donald Trump was indefinitely banned from the platform early last year, and has continued to spark outrage by labeing false information about COVID, the Jan. 6 insurrection and the 2020 election.
Twitter sees these practices as signalling “bad-faith actors.”
When co-anchor Gillian Turner pointed out that algorithms, not individuals oversee content moderation, Jenner reiterated her message about free speech.
“We’re not getting open debate on Twitter any longer – it is what they think is politically correct,” she said. “And that has to stop because I don’t think we can grow as a nation and grow in ideas when we’re totally being censored by Big Tech. And it’s got to stop.”
