Elon Musk has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Norwegian libertarian MP Marius Nilsen, who tossed the Tesla founder’s name into the mix for consideration, cited Musk’s “adamant defense of dialogue, free speech and [enabling] the possibility to express one’s views’ in a continuously more polarized world.”

Nilsen also praised Musk’s enterprises for helping to “make the world a more connected and safer place.”

Good for Elon Musk — he deserves it.

Musk sacrificed his reputation and standing with America’s liberal elites on the altar of free speech. We mustn’t forget how close our nation came to losing what law professor Jonathan Turley in a new book calls the “indispensable right,” and the critical role Musk has played in protecting that right.

This has made him a reviled target for those on the left. Politico reported on Musk’s nomination with the headline: “Musk and Assange follow Putin, Trump and Stalin as Nobel Peace Prize nominees.” I bet that wasn’t the way they reported on Barack Obama’s completely absurd winning of the peace prize in 2009, barely eight months into his presidency.

Obama was singled out by the notoriously left-leaning Nobel committee for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," even though he had done exactly nothing on the diplomatic front in his early White House months or as the junior senator from Illinois. It is gratifying that the Nobel secretary later lamented having given the prize to Obama, acknowledging that it was a polarizing mistake.

Why did liberals, once enamored of the billionaire entrepreneur, turn against Musk?

After all, long before Musk bought Twitter, his

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