Every corner of the internet is trying to figure out what happens when Twitter gets Musk-iffier.
As recently as last week, it appeared that Twitter would reject Musk's $46.5 billion offer. That seemed to change over the weekend. Twitter's board reportedly met with Musk on Sunday after securing financing from Morgan Stanley and other lenders using a combination of debt and cash.
Importantly, the pending deal has revived concerns about how the billionaire free speech absolutism could affect Twitter's policies on misinformation and hate speech. That includes whether Musk will lift a website ban on former President Donald Trump.
Why is Musk doing this?
The billionaire is open about how his desire to buy Twitter isn't about economics — it's about influence.
"This is not a way to make money," Musk said during his TED 2022 talk on April 14. It's just my strong gut feeling that having a public platform that's maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of society. Civilization. I don't care about economics at all.
Musk's plan is to take the company private — which gives him incredible power over Twitter because it will allow him to roll out products quickly, make decisions with less control, and generally operate with less transparency than a publicly traded firm.
It could also benefit his other business interests, including Tesla and SpaceX.
Why is Twitter doing this?
Twitter has historically punched above its weight in terms of influence, with its powerful users including heads of government, journalists and activists. However, it has never approached Facebook's level of profitability, and its overall valuation lags many of Silicon Valley's other major players. Although Twitter was launched in 2006, it didn't post its first annual profit until 2018. Recent internal power struggles at the company led to Dorsey's departure. Twitter's board and the company's investors can count on Musk finally tapping into the site's influential audience. Musk has publicly considered a number of changes to the platform, including creating an algorithm that provides users with open source content and adding an edit button.
The billionaire has a knack for raising the stock value of the companies and products he promotes, whether it's Twitter or Dogecoin. Twitter's share price rose on Monday after news that a deal from Musk was being finalized.
The potentially looming deal also illustrates how the meme stocks Musk is a fan of and economic reality are increasingly entangled.
Is buying Twitter a good idea?
Despite Musk's apparent enthusiasm, the free speech maximalist may not be ready for the challenges of moderating content around the world.
Musk expressed his dismay at Twitter's permanent bans, such as those imposed on Trump, and urged the company to make the mistake of allowing tweets in the name of free speech instead of removing those that violate the site's content policy. However, implementing this freewheeling approach would require reckoning with a patchwork of different laws and cultural attitudes to freedom of expression around the world.
Twitter currently moderates certain content and blocks users based on various standards; last week, for example, the company said it would ban ads that misrepresent the science and reality of climate change. Among those banned from the site are high-profile QAnon conspiracy theorists, as well as a former president.
Such policy decisions have sometimes brought the company into conflict with governments and members of the public alike. For example, Russia passed a law that went into effect on January 1 that requires social media sites with more than 500,000 Russian users per day, which includes Twitter and other major platforms, to have a legal entity or local subsidiary based in Russia.
"Elon Musk is not the first influential person to have ideas about freedom of expression that quickly collide with the reality that there is no one-size-fits-all solution around the world," said Ángel Díaz, a lecturer at the University of California. Los Angeles, School of Law, who has written reports on content moderation and marginalized communities.
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