Tech Billionaire, Elon Musk, has warned that Ireland’s hate speech proposals would put Irish people at “the mercy” of politicians and bureaucrats who may criminalise speech they don’t like.

He said that “people should be concerned” that Irish politicians wanted to define “whatever they think hate speech is”, calling free speech “the bedrock of democracy”.

“You have to be able to speak your mind within the context of the law: without that you don’t have a real democracy”.

Mr Musk said that the default position of X, formerly Twitter, was to “challenge any legislation that infringes on the people’s ability to say what they want to say”.

“And we will also fund the legal fees of Irish citizens that want to challenge the Bill as well,” Mr Musk told Gript.