In a post-Elon Musk world, Twitter may now have a major racism problem (well, an even bigger major racism problem). How else does explain how the usage of the N-word went up a mind-blowing 500 percent in the wake of the Tesla founder’s reluctant takeover of the social media behemoth? While the official reason being given is a highly organized “trolling campaign,” it probably didn’t help the site’s reputation that its new owner is now using the site to float baseless conspiracy theories about the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband. But on Tuesday night, Trevor Noah offered up some other possibilities for the racist free-for-all.
From Atlanta, The Daily Show host offered up a range of possible explanations as to why Twitter became flooded with hate speech. “Who knows what it is,” he said. “It could be racist, yeah, it could be… You feel free and emboldened to say it now. Or it could be Black people watching Elon take over like, ‘THIS n***a.’ You don’t know which one it is.”
What Noah, and the rest of the world, does know, however, is that Musk isn’t wasting any time in trying to recoup the $44 billion he spent (a.k.a. was forced to spend) in order to purchase Twitter, most notably by announcing that verified users would now have to pay $20 per month for the meaningless blue checkmark next to their name — which he quickly lowered to $8.
Given Musk’s need to make Twitter profitable, and what Noah describes as the free speech people’s desire to only ever use their right to free speech to use the N-word (“Why do they never want to use their free speech to say words like ‘perambulate’ or ‘pusillanimous’?”), the host has come up with a brilliant suggestion: “If Elon Musk wants to make money from Twitter, what he should do: Don’t charge people for blue checkmarks… Charge white people to say the N-word. Twitter will be the most profitable company in history. Racists are going to be taking out loans.”
You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 2:00 mark.