The Daily Show and its host Trevor Noah dropped its second of four live tapings from the Tabernacle in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday night. And during his monologue, delivered like a stand-up comedy set, Noah—who is departing the political satire series later this year—focused his attention on edgelord and aspiring comic Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter acquisition.
Calling Musk “the guy who always looks like a ghost, whether it’s Halloween or not,” Noah explained how, “For months now, Musk has said that he wanted to own Twitter. And the reason he wanted to own Twitter is because he wanted to make sure that it’s a haven for free speech… because let’s be honest, up until now, you know, people have really held back on Twitter. I always find myself scrolling and thinking, what do you really think? Why are you so reserved, sir?!”
Then, Noah referenced reports that within the first 12 hours of Musk’s Twitter ownership, the use of the N-word on Twitter jumped by almost 500 percent as racist trolls emboldened by Musk’s takeover giddily tested the limits of what they could say.
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After a chorus of loud boos from the crowd, Noah said, “You don’t know! Who knows what it is? It could be racist, yeah. It could be….[People] feel free and feel emboldened to say it now. Or it could be Black people watching Elon take over like, ‘This n----.’”
“He’s going crazy,” Noah continued of Musk. “Here’s my question. I really want to know this. Why is it always when the free speech people—all those people who are like, we want free speech!—why do they never want to use their free speech to say words like ‘perambulate’ or ‘pusillanimous.’ Like, it’s never stuff like that, have you noticed? They’re like, ‘We want free speech! We want free speech!’ OK, what do you want to say? ‘N-----.’ Like, really? All the things you could have said in the world. Every word! Everything you could have spoken about, all the issues, what do you want to say? Any other word? ‘Um… n----s?’ It feels like he doesn’t want free speech, you just want to hate on people.”
Noah then addressed Musk’s announcement that he’ll be charging Twitter users $8 a month for a blue verification checkmark.
“Because I guess he’s hoping that everyone else on Twitter will make terrible financial decisions like he did,” cracked Noah. “With eight dollars a month, you can subscribe to Netflix, you can get Paramount+, you can get Hulu… or you can pay so that people verify that they’re actually shitting on you.”
Then there was the reason Musk gave, which is that, “Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”
“So, here’s my question: If you’re trying to create equality on Twitter, why charge anyone to be verified? Just give everyone a blue checkmark then. Why are you charging people?” asked Noah. “It doesn’t make sense to offer it as ‘equality’ and then put a price on it, do you get what I’m saying? Can you imagine if MLK was out there like, ‘I have a dream. I have a dream…and I’ll tell you all about it for $8.99 a month.’ It wouldn’t be the same thing.”
“It’s all about ‘equality.’ No, you’re trying to make money. I get it” he continued. “I think this $8 a month thing is ridiculous. If you ask me, if Elon Musk wants to make money from Twitter, what he should do [is], don’t charge people for blue checkmarks. Charge white people to say the N-word. Twitter will be the most profitable company in history. Racists will be taking out loans.”
