Elon Musk was praised by Robert F Kennedy Jr as the US presidential candidate was hosted in a second Twitter Spaces event for a 2024 White House candidate.
Following on from the May event with Republican Ron DeSantis, which didn’t exactly go according to plan, Musk chatted to Kennedy Jr – son of former attorney general Bobby, who was assassinated in 1968 when he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination – for two-and-a-half hours and at one point had an audience of over 64,000.
In April, Kennedy Jr announced his bid to challenge President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination and during his varied conservation with Musk, he thanked him for championing free speech on Twitter after altering the social media giant’s strict censorship rules.
“I just want to tell you how much I admire you for that and how grateful I am on behalf of my country,” Kennedy Jr said.
“You would come here from another country and be a key instrument for rescuing American democracy and freedom of speech.
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“I think if we don’t protect free speech at all costs, we don’t have a functioning democracy.”
Kennedy Jr himself had previously been banned by several social media platforms after they accused him of spreading misinformation about vaccines and Covid-19, while the 69-year-old has also criticised social-distancing requirements. He was recently reinstated by Instagram.
During the 150-minute event, Kennedy Jr said about vaccines: “I don’t ever need to talk about vaccines again.
“But if somebody asks me about vaccines, I’m gonna tell them the truth.
“A lot of times people ask me about them and immediately want to shut me up because it’s like turning on a fire hose.
“I have a lot of domain knowledge, I know a lot about the issue and I would say to the press, if you don’t want to hear that from me then don’t ask me and you’ll never have to listen to me.”
Kennedy Jr has accused social media companies of folding to pressure from the government to censor anti-establishment views.
His anti-vaccine activism has also earned him plenty of allies. In 2017, former president Donald Trump wanted him to oversee a vaccine review panel, which drew criticism from scientists who said it could legitimise unfounded skepticism.
