Watch: Musk Tears Up ‘Woke Mind Virus’ in Fiery Bill Maher Interview

May 2nd, 2023 5:03 PM

In a Sunday interview with HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Elon Musk got candid about protecting the First Amendment and exposing how wokeism seeks to destroy America. “I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti-meritocratic and anything that is–that that results in the suppression of free speech,” Musk told Maher when asked about the reason behind purchasing Twitter. “You know, those are two of the aspects of the woke mind virus that I think are very dangerous. Is that it's often anti-meritocratic. You can't, you can't question things. Even the questioning is bad. You know, another way to — almost synonymous — would we cancel culture, and obviously people have tried to cancel you many times.”

Maher, a target of leftist boycott campaigns, responded to the bigotry of wokeism. “I feel like very often wokeness is not building on liberalism,” he said. “It's the opposite of liberalism. I can mention many examples where it's the opposite, including free speech.”

Musk echoed Maher’s pro-speech remarks, slamming the left’s assault against the First Amendment. “Free speech is actually, is extremely important, and it's bizarre that we've come to this point where, like, free speech used to be a left or liberal value. And yet, we see from, you know, in quotes, left, a desire to actually censor, and that seems crazy. I mean, I think we should be extremely concerned about anything that undermines the First Amendment.”

Musk, who was born in South Africa, defended the constitutional protections of speech.“There’s a reason for the First Amendment,” Musk continued. “The First Amendment is because people came from countries where they could not speak freely and where, and where saying certain things would get you thrown into prison, and they were like, ‘Well, we don't want that here.’ And by the way, in many parts of the world — including parts of the world that people might think are relatively similar to the United States — the speech laws are draconian.”

Maher briefly mentioned, “England is quite different.” Causing the audience to laugh, a smirking Musk answered, “I won’t name any country.”

Watch the full interview below:

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