Aisha Nozari
UFC star Sean Strickland has described tech billionaire Elon Musk as ‘the Batman of free speech’.
Unfortunately, not all of Strickland’s 46,000-strong Twitter following agreed with the middleweight, with one person branding him ‘cringe’.
Musk made a $41.39 billion offer to buy Twitter last week, and Strickland’s recent tweet suggests he’s all for the Tesla CEO’s takeover.
Strickland tweeted on 15 April: “Elon is becoming the Batman of free speech” and his fans were quick to shut the sentiment down, with one person responding on Twitter: “No he’s not. Not at all, lol.”
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Another social media user simply wrote: “Cringe,” while a third added: “This is the worst tweet I’ve ever seen.”
Musk put in his eye-watering Twitter bid last week, shortly after becoming the social media firm's largest single stakeholder with a 9.2 percent share.
However, Musk was knocked off the top spot days later when US investment company Vanguard disclosed it actually owns 10.3% of the social media giant.
Explaining why he wants to buy the company in a letter to Twitter chairman Bret Taylor, Musk explained: "Since making my investment I now realise the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.
"My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder."
Musk did confess his Twitter takeover may be unlikely when speaking at the TED2022 conference in Vancouver last week.
“I am not sure that I will actually be able to acquire it," he told the event’s audience, hot off reports that Twitter’s board was considering using a ‘poison pill’ method to prevent him from purchasing the company.
Strickland, meanwhile, is no stranger to getting under people’s skin, and in February was at the centre of what SPORTbible billed as ‘one of the rudest and most bizarre press conferences ever’.
Speaking to reporters at the time, the fighter branded himself ‘a white trash motherf**ker’ while boasting UFC would never give him the boot.
"I'm getting to a point where I can say s**t and not get cut from the UFC," Strickland declared at the UFC Apex.
"Before, it's like 'oh man, I wasn't good'. Like, I couldn't say s**t because Dana White would be like, 'Hey, go f**k that white trash motherf**ker. Get him out of here'. But now, since I'm growing a little bit more like, you know, fan base, people want to watch me fight, I can say a lot more offensive s**t.
"Every coach or manager I ever had, like, 'Sean, shut up. They're not going to sign you. Like, shut up. They don't want that. They want an image'. Now, I'm just going to be the white trash motherf**ker that I am. It's nice."