‘Delete all IP law’ says Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey: ‘Creativity is what currently separates us, and the current system is limiting that’

Jack Dorsey, the ex-CEO and co-founder of Twitter, has taken to his… X account to post a debate-sparking statement: “Delete all IP law.”

Elon Musk responded to the tweet/xeet with a similarly brief “I agree”, as the thread descended into a full on internet slappy fight between intellectual property defenders and those that seem to feel that IP law is a barrier to progress in the modern age.

“Agreed. Burn the entire regime,” posted one user, while others pointed out examples of intellectual property belonging to Block, Inc (formerly Square, Inc), a company co-founded by Dorsey.

Dorsey appeared to double-down on his argument (via Techcrunch). In response to a post arguing that IP law is the only thing separating human creations from AI creations, he responded:

“Creativity is what currently separates us, and the current system is limiting that, and putting the payments (sic) disbursement into the hands of gatekeepers who aren’t paying out fairly.”

Which sounds like a call for IP law reform, not its removal, to me. Quite what has caused Dorsey to openly call for IP law to be “deleted” is unclear.

However, Dorsey-created X competitor, BlueSky, was created on an open source protocol, and his newest AI venture, an AI assistant called “Goose”, uses an open source model. Dorsey appears to be a fan of the open use of information, and not, it seems, legally-protected IP rights, at least under the current system.

Musk, meanwhile, has previously stated that “patents are for the weak”, despite having a total of 25 of them credited to his name. The world’s richest man has previously pledged he would not enforce legal action against other companies that used Tesla’s patents in good faith.

Intellectual property rights are a hot topic in the modern age of AI, as it’s been repeatedly claimed that various tech companies have been illegally scraping copyrighted data to train their AI models.

OpenAI has recently set out a number of proposals for the US government, encouraging it to enact a copyright strategy that “promotes the freedom to learn” in the face of Chinese competition, specifically to “avoid forfeiting our AI lead to the [People’s Republic of China] by preserving American AI models.”

Both Dorsey and Musk are heavily entrenched in AI development—and AI, it appears, has an intellectual rights problem.

Musk’s position as a man with the ear of President Trump makes his comments particularly concerning, although IP law reform (or “deletion”) doesn’t appear to be high on the current US government’s agenda—which instead seems to be focussed on changing its mind regarding tariff rates on an almost daily basis.

Still, both Dorsey and Musk have a significant voice in the tech industry—and serious financial power—and these comments feel like a potential escalation in the ongoing debate around who (if anyone) should own the rights to intellectual works, with some incredibly wealthy and influential players throwing their hats into the ring.

As to whether this is indicative of potential sweeping changes to intellectual property rights in years to come? Your guess is as good as mine. Still, as X user @poordart puts it (quite succinctly, in my opinion): “Everybody becomes a free-market libertarian once they make their bag.”