“I, at least, think of myself as a moderate,” Elon Musk told Bill Maher during an appearance Friday night on the comedian’s HBO show.

Despite being decried by all asunder as a ‘far-right conservative operative’ or some such hyperbole, Musk said:

“I spent a massive amount of my life energy building sustainable energy, you know, electric vehicles, and batteries, and solar. It’s not exactly far-right.”

Musk made his opinion clear a year ago – he hasn’t changed, the world has…

And somehow in all this divisive bullshit, ‘allowing’ free speech has become a virtue of the far-right, the enablers of violence, the fascists

“Free speech used to be a left or liberal value, and yet we see from the quote ‘left’ a desire to actually censor, and that seems crazy.”

“I think we should be extremely concerned about anything that undermines the First Amendment,” Musk said.

More explicitly regarding his acquisition or, and changes made at, Twitter, Musk said:

“My concern with Twitter was to that it is somewhat of the digital town square and it’s important that there be both the reality and perception of trust for a wide range of viewpoints.“

Maher responded that he does not tweet any more because “it’s too easy to get canceled” by a mob.

“Because you may be the mayor of tweet town now and I’m glad – I like it that the mayor likes my jokes – but the reason I don’t do it anymore is because the mob of mean girls is still there and that has not changed. 

Like, it’s too easy to get canceled and I don’t even know what pisses them off: they’re so nuts, these kids. 

I feel like I’m walking on a roof with a blind fold: I could fall off anytime, that was the most innocuous thing, but it’s like, you know, I said George Washington was a great president – oh how dare you,” Maher continued.

“You have to say, like, what does canceled mean? You know – I mean, yes, if people attack you on Twitter that’s one thing – but frankly that’s just going to increase engagement. So I would just ignore it,” Musk replied somewhat prosaically.

And so Maher stepped it up a little more:

“You have talked about this woke mind virus in really apocalyptic terms,” Maher asked Musk

 “I don’t – you should explain why you don’t think it’s hyperbole to say things like it’s pushing civilization towards suicide. First of all, what is the woke mind virus?”

Musk responded much more clearly this time:

“I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti-meritocratic and anything that results in the suppression of free speech,” Musk said.

“So, those are two of the aspects of the woke mind virus that I think are very dangerous, is that it’s often very anti-meritocratic, and you can’t question things. Even the questioning is bad.”

Maher agreed, and asked Musk where he thinks this ‘woke mind virus’ originated from:

“I was trying to figure out where it’s coming from. I think it’s actually been a long time brewing, in that it’s – I think it’s been going on for a while, and the amount of indoctrination that’s happening in schools and universities is I think far beyond what parents realize,” Musk said.

Watch the full interview below: