And the Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris.

Little housekeeping here.

A couple of recent events that have converged on the topic of free speech,

which I should probably say something about.

We had those university presidents testifying before Congress about whether calling for a

genocide of the Jews violated their school policies.

And then we had the continuing saga of Elon Musk and what he imagines to be his own efforts to protect the free speech rights of Earth on his private platform X.

What are these two things have in common?

Well, they both appear to have provoked a fair amount of outrage and confusion, mostly from the

right and left, respectively. People don't even seem to know the principles they want to defend here. And the truth is both of these cases

have almost nothing to do with free speech, despite what everyone claims. The real problem

with both Elon and the university

presence is that everyone involved has been displaying extraordinary levels

of hypocrisy and moral confusion. I guess I'll start with Elon. The problem with what Elon is doing

at X is not that he is a so-called free speech absolutist. He's nothing of the kind. The problem is that his behavior is impulsive and

unprincipled and narrowly self-serving while being colossally self-destructive.

I mean, how is this for free speech absolutism?

Threatening to sue advertisers for declining to advertise on X.

In fact, referring to them not giving him money

as blackmail.

Calling for CEOs like Bob Eiger

to be fired immediately for not wanting the brand damage or the brain damage

...