Liberals should not quit Elon Musk’s X, leading US lawmaker says

A Democratic lawmaker representing Silicon Valley says progressives should remain engaged on Elon Musk’s social media platform X.

Ro Khanna, who is in the mix as a possible contender for the White House in 2028 and hails from the progressive wing of the party, was comfortably reelected to the House of Representatives earlier this month. He insists liberals around the world like himself should not abandon Musk’s X for other social media platforms. 

The two have known each other for many years and are in regular contact, including this week on X, where they found common ground on shrinking what they regard as a bloated U.S. defense budget.

“I think that everything he has said publicly is he believes in free and open speech, and we need to have more platforms. Now, I don’t think X should be the only platform,” Khanna told Anne McElvoy for POLITICO’s Power Play podcast. “Not only do I stay, I use it all the time … I don’t think that the answer for progressives is to disengage.” 

“Now we have the distortion of the public sphere with moneyed interests and with digital spaces that aren’t equal for everyone to participate. And what we ought to be focused on is how do we create more town hall-like places for conversation online.”

On the subject of regulation, Khanna said he was not in favor of the U.S. adopting Australia-style measures to ban social media for people under 16 years of age. He said the U.S. already has safeguards in place.

“We have a more robust tradition of free speech, and if someone’s 15 and wants to speak out about Palestinian rights or LGTBQ rights or Black Lives Matter and wants to be online, I don’t think we should just blanket-restrict that person’s speech. I think that there are other ways to get about it.”