Musk promises to fund legal fights of discriminated X users

Elon Musk has offered to fund the legal bills of any users of his social network, X, who’ve been discriminated against by their employer because of their actions on the platform.

The proposal comes with “no limit” on costs and X will “go after the boards of directors of the companies too”, he said in messages posted to the site Saturday night. The billionaire, who acquired Twitter for $44bn (R812.6bn) in October and recently rebranded it as X, has made a habit of announcing major policy changes for the service late at night or over weekends. The X rebrand happened over the course of a weekend in July.

Musk has been responding affirmatively to suggestions posted to X of cases his company could support.

Musk himself has been known to throw barbs against former employees and critics. Amid firing thousands after his purchase of Twitter, the billionaire publicly mocked senior director Halli Thorleifsson after the worker tried to gain clarity on his employment status at the company. 

Former employees of Musk’s other companies, SpaceX and Tesla, have also complained they were fired in retaliation for critical comments about him in his role as CEO of both firms.

Musk’s tenure as X’s owner has seen a spike in harmful content due to policy changes in content moderation, according to researchers. The self-styled “free speech absolutist” hired NBCUniversal ad executive Linda Yaccarino as CEO in May to help repair partnerships in the media industry and lure back advertisers.

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