Hours after Telegram CEO Pavel Durov's arrest, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk came out in support of the Russian entrepreneur and slammed his "wrongful" arrest. However, while showing his support for Durov, Musk called for Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to be arrested instead.
Pavel Durov was arrested by French authorities on Sunday on numerous charges related to his social messaging app Telegram. If convicted on these charges, the Russian-born tech mogul faces up to 20 years in prison.
Reacting to an X post alleging Mark Zuckerberg enabling child predators on Meta-owned Instagram, Elon Musk questioned how Zuckerburg had not been arrested at all.
"Because he already caved into censorship pressure.Instagram has a massive child exploitation problem, but no arrest for Zuck, as he censors free speech and gives governments backdoor access to user data," stated Musk on X.
Adding to Musk's statement, the CEO of Rumble Chris Pavlovski added that the French government has also "threatened Rumble, and now they have crossed a red line by arresting Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durov, reportedly for not censoring speech."
"It is vital to the support of free speech that you forward đť•Ź posts to people you know, especially in censorship-heavy countries," Musk added in another post.
During a hearing at the Senate in February 2024, Zuckerberg apologised to the families of victims of online child sex abuse.
"I'm sorry for everything you have all been through. No one should go through the things that your families have suffered. And this is why we invest so much and we are going to continue doing industry-wide efforts to make sure no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer," stated the Meta CEO.
