Elon Musk’s Conquer of Twitter
The news yesterday of Elon Musk’s purchase of publicly-traded company Twitter, shouldn’t have been a surprise.
It had appeared something was in the works, since he first bought a 9.2% stake in Twitter in early April, joined it’s Board of Directors, then ‘quit’ the Board of Directors and in the last week, outwardly stated his desire to purchase Twitter for US $44 billion and take it private.
This is what Elon had to say in a tweet yesterday:
And yet, here we are. Surprised and perhaps, shocked more than anything.
Because this feels like arguably our most empowering free speech platform as we’ve come to know it, will have it’s future written by the richest man in the world. And we’re not sure how we feel about this.
I use the word our above because I really do believe the community of people who use Twitter, including me (I’m a huge fan!), feel like it has (or was) a collective place that we all owned together — in sharing our thoughts, our ideas, our opinions, hearing the latest about news and current events, and having such personalized and close access to people who we would have only dreamed of being able to hear from every single day, only a few short decades ago. It really is a public space, a ‘community’ that we’ve come to utilize and enjoy as a form of how we communicate and take in information, daily.
We’re either polarized in our feelings about the takeover, or we’re unsure about our comfort level with it all. We’re mixed and varied in our reactions to Musk’s takeover of Twitter, I’ve seen ‘both sides’ shouting their thoughts from the rooftops in the past 24 hours.
Jack Dorsey, Co-Founder of Twitter and former CEO tweeted this thread out, supporting Musk’s purchase of the platform. Dorsey obviously see’s it’s potential in being taken private. Obviously Twitter’s Board of Directors supported Musk’s takeover in accepting his bid.
Some Twitter users are excited for the plans that Musk has for ‘free speech’ and ideas like less content moderation and an edit button. The relationship between Musk and advertisers, which is how Twitter generates a majority of its revenue, will be interesting. This article, “Will advertisers flee a ‘free speech’ Twitter?” highlights the conundrum that may be ahead. I think alot of people wonder too, if one of the first things Musk will do is allow former US President Donald Trump to re-join Twitter, since he’s permanently suspended from the platform.
There are a lot of things that others don’t feel comfortable about in this takeover. Musk’s excessive wealth doesn’t sit well with people (or the lack of taxes it appears he doesn’t pay). His past tweets have offended people (see below), while his aggressive behaviour and sometimes disrespectful demeanor when using the platform have angered Twitter users, who I suspect, are expecting a certain level of respect, humility and class when you’re a ‘visionary leader,’ rightful innovator and the richest man in the world.
Information is power to us as civilians.
I think many of us are wondering if this purchase will chart a new course for a platform we’ve come to love; if how we’re able to access or view information will be different going forward — and are wondering if information will be withheld from us, censored or limited? How will ‘free speech’ be handled if its disrespectful, violent and simply becomes hate speech? For those who are truly against this purchase, will the mass exodus begin of Twitter users stepping away from the platform? What will thought leaders and politicians do in this instance?
The coming months are going to be fascinating to watch, not only from the sidelines, but as an active user of Twitter.
Who knows what it’s store and what the future holds. I’m going to stick around nonetheless to be a part of the change, and see how the change sits, before I make any decisions.
