Silicon Valley investor says Elon Musk should be prosecuted for 'undermining govt. that's paying him'
Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee argued that Elon Musk's free speech should be curtailed because of the government ties to his businesses like SpaceX.
Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee called on Elon Musk to be "prosecuted," claiming the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was "undermining" the federal government he does business with by sharing his opinions on X.
"You have somebody who runs a really strategic defense and aerospace projects for the federal government who's actively undermining the government that's paying him. And somewhere in that is a legal case that needs to be prosecuted," Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners said on "The Last Word," Saturday.
McNamee was responding to a hate speech watchdog's report which found Elon Musk guilty of spreading "false or misleading claims about the U.S. election" through his posts on the social media platform, which had garnered "nearly 1.2 billion views."
McNamee argued that there should be limitations on Musk's free speech rights because SpaceX has government contracts.
SpaceX has long been a major partner for the U.S. government in launching military satellites. Documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal earlier this year show the company entered into a massive $1.8 billion classified contract with the U.S. in 2021.
"The critical element in thinking about Elon Musk is that, like any American, he has a right to his own opinion, and he has a right to express his opinion," McNamee began on MSNBC.
"However, that right is not unlimited. He is under some special limitations that would not apply to normal people because his company, specifically Starlink and SpaceX are government contractors and, as such, he has obligations to the government that would, for any normal person, and should for him, require him to moderate his speech in the interest of national security."
Musk filed a lawsuit last year against the hate speech watchdog, The Center for Countering Digital Hate, arguing the claims in the report were "misleading." They claimed the nonprofit's "scare campaign" cost the social media platform millions when advertisers fled.
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The group's CEO Imran Ahmed defended the report in a previous media appearance.
"The truth is that [Musk's] been casting around for a reason to blame us for his own failings as a CEO, because we all know that when he took over, he put up the bat signal to racists, to misogynists, to homophobes, to anti-Semites, saying Twitter is now a free speech platform. He welcomed them back on," Ahmed said on CNN last year.
Former President Trump announced this week he would appoint Musk to lead a government efficiency commission if elected in November.
"I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government," he said in comments given to the New York Economic Club.
"I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises," Musk wrote on X in response. "No pay, no title, no recognition is needed."
X did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
FOX Business' Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
