Musk says he'll spend about $180 million to elect Trump.
They are the nation's two most powerful enemies of democracy (though Musk has some competition for second place) and, by extension, freedom of expression.
Everyone who buys a Tesla is supporting them.
Everyone who uses the deadbird site -- notably the journalists, who all know what they're doing -- is supporting them.
Don't pretend otherwise.
@hans @dangillmor You can thank the Citizens United decision for that.
On Jan. 21, 2010, in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Supreme Court ruled to strike down a prohibition on corporate independent expenditures, which has since enabled corporations and other outside groups to engage in unlimited amounts of campaign spending.
@DebErupts @hans @dangillmor IMHO what was wrong with CU was not the basic principle - corporations should be allowed to spend money on elections - but the lack of any differentiation between types of corporations.
CU should have allowed not-for-profit corporations the same rights as individuals, and should have barred for-profit corporations from spending anything at all.
We have to be able to form organizational groups and spend on politics, but that doesn't imply Musk & $180M.
@PaulDavisTheFirst That does not work. PACs *are* nonprofits and they are funded by billionaires.
And Musk is not spending the money as a corporation, he is spending it as an individual.
@markmevans if i had more than 485 chars, i'd have said "certain classes of non-profits".
and yes, in the case of Musk, CU really has nothing to do with it, due to individual spending.
the CU case came out of not-really-for-profit corporation wanting to publish a clearly-election related book. tto me it seems that the ability to do this is extremely desirable. but it should not be available to any class of corporation.
Dan Gillmor
Hans van Zijst
Deborah Rose ❌👑
PaulDavisTheFirst
Mark M. Evans