If you don’t want to associate with Nazis you hate free speech, say abject morons

Again, the key to understanding the Intellectual Horse Paste Web definition of “free speech” is that it denies any freedom of association to people who aren’t interesting in hearing or associating themselves with content they find objectionable:

The idea that Apple has an inalienable obligation to pay Elon Musk so that they can damage their brand is both incredibly stupid and and very bad business model, and he doesn’t have any subsidies to bail him out of this one.

Part of the problem here, as JMM says, is that Musk seems to completely misunderstand who has the leverage here. This isn’t like corporations donating to election deniers after a brief pause — they have an interest in lower taxes and regulations and politicians can help deliver. But nobody needs to advertise on any particular website, and if it’s not in their interest they won’t. If he thinks he can win a power struggle with Apple he’s very, very wrong — and the fact that he seems to consider James Lindsay a serious intellectual strongly suggests that he is in fact dumb enough to believe that he can.