It's very clear from Musk's prior speech and behavior that being a "free speech absolutist" is unrelated to buying Twitter. He's an authoritarian, and authorit

It's very clear from Musk's prior speech and behavior that being a "free speech absolutist" is unrelated to buying Twitter. He's an authoritarian, and authoritarians always need to hide behind some higher-purpose ideology (socialism, libertarianism, protection from invaders, etc.) If he were really a proponent of free speech, he would lobby to break up Twitter and decentralize broadcast power, not buy himself a piece of a centralized broadcaster. There is nothing but self interest here. He could even have started his own platform himself or just boosted Mastodon or something like that, but he didn't. He doesn't want to democratize anything, he just wants to get away with doing whatever he wants.