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Paul Stanley Questions Elon Musk's Priorities Amid $44B Twitter Purchase

KISS frontman Paul Stanley was critical of Tesla and Space X founder Elon Musk's recent $44 billion bid to purchase Twitter, noting that such an extraordinary sum of money could be used instead for any number of humanitarian causes.

"I May Be Missing Something (please tell me)," Stanley wrote Monday in a Tweet. "Rather than funding a personal acquisition, Wouldn't our world be better advanced by using far less than 44 BILLION DOLLARS to eradicate world hunger?, cure cancer? The list is long & the possibilities endless."

Last fall, the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) Director David Beasley told CNN that it would take only $6 billion to help 42 million people "that are literally going to die" from hunger. In his remarks, Beasley specifically called on Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to "step up now."

The $6 billion figure represented about 2 percent of Musk's estimated fortune.

Musk promptly replied (via Twitter) that he would sell Tesla stock to fund such an initiative, assuming WFP could provide a plan.

A few weeks later, Beasley publicized an "executive summary" of the WFP's plan. It's unclear if Musk plans to follow through on his end.

Beasley later explained that while the $6 billion wouldn't "solve world hunger," as some had interpreted, the money could be used to remediate subsequent issues like "geopolitical instability" and "mass migration" en route to feeding 42 million starving people.

Musk has described himself as a "free speech absolutist," and has been critical in recent years of Twitter's policing of sensitive content, hate speech and misinformation on the platform. He has frequently challenged Twitter to use its status as a private company to champion free speech.

Stanley's longtime Kiss partner, bassist Gene Simmons, sang a slightly different tune last week when he learned of the billionaire's acquisition.

Simmons first congratulated Musk, noting that free speech is "important," but he also cautioned that "hate speech, factual misinformation (lies) should not be a part of Free Speech, in my humble opinion. Good luck to Elon."