I’ll skip by the Contracts 101 chestnut that covers under what circumstances courts will view a promise of this sort made to the general public as constituting an enforceable contract. I’ll also skip the question of how often Musk has himself fired employees for posting things on the platform, since he presumably doesn’t regard the treatment in those episodes as unfair.
I will, however, make a few other points:
- Under the American legal rule of employment at will, most disgruntled employees fired over social media postings lack a sound legal basis to sue. Not every perceived unfairness generates a valid lawsuit; in fact, most don’t.
- Conservatives and libertarians should view that background rule of employment at will as a good thing worthy of our respect. If you work for a private employer and it finds something you wrote on social media to be detestable, hateful, or racist, it should have a right to pull out of the relationship, just as you have the same right to disassociate yourself from a hateful employer. That’s what freedom of contract is supposed to mean.