Billionaire Mark Cuban is skeptical of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter, The Daily Mail reports. Cuban tweeted his questioning of Musk’s plans to buy Twitter as merely “f***ing with the SEC.”

The Dallas Mavericks owner suspects Musk is scheming to drive up Twitter’s share price before selling his 9.2% stake for a massive profit.

Cuban elaborated, pointing to Musk’s infamous tweets in August 2018 when Musk claimed he was “considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share. Funding secured.” Then, Musk's plan fell through.

A Financial Times editorial echoed Cuban, noting how Elon Musk’s misleading “Funding secured” tweet from four years ago could be repeating itself in his latest bid for Twitter.

Free Speech or ... More Money?

Musk told a TED Talks gathering in Vancouver on April 14 that his main goal of buying Twitter is “not to make money” but, instead, to build “a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive,” citing free speech concerns that are often levied against the social media platform.

Mark Cuban, however, views Musk’s motives as self-serving. In September 2018, Musk was fined $40 million, and was subsequently ordered by a judge to pay the amount, with half coming from him and the other half from Tesla.

Despite the fine, Musk argued the tweet and subsequent $40 million fine were “worth it.”

Four years later, Musk’s insists his bid for Twitter “is not about economics,” but is about protecting free speech in social media. Musk's potentialy Twitter takeover is inspiring skeptics like Cuban, scorn from liberals, and trepidation among Twitter employees and Twitterers who don't want any guardrails put on their Twitter feeds.

Praise for Twitter Censorship

A columnist for the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, Max Boot, says that Musk’s bid for Twitter is frightening for society. Boot argues that “for democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less.”

On the other side of the equation, conservative supporters are applauding Musk's purported protection of free speech through his Twitter takeover.