“Everyone will still blame me for everything,” Musk said during an onstage interview at TED. Thursday. “If I take over Twitter and something goes wrong, it’s 100% my fault. I think there will be quite a few errors.”
Musk has repeatedly stressed in recent days that his goal is to advance freedom of expression on the platform and work to “unlock” Twitter’s extraordinary potential. Others have indicated that he may be more interested in stepping up interest in himself, whether the deal goes through or not. It is now left to Twitter’s leadership, shareholders and employees to ponder that question in the wake of Musk’s stunning bid on Thursday to acquire all of Twitter’s shares he doesn’t own for $41.4 billion.
Gina Golden, who led the company’s political sales team in Washington from 2012 to 2017, said veteran employees are used to dealing with big changes. She believes many are keeping their heads down and trusting their leaders to help weather the storm. But the oscillations of musk can make it difficult to stay focused.
Twitter’s stock fluctuated a bit Thursday but remained mostly flat, closing around $45, well below Musk’s bid price of $54.20 per share. The lack of enthusiasm – unusual after a takeover bid – indicates investors’ skepticism about the deal in progress.
Twitter declined to comment for this story, and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
Musk’s announced plans for Twitter
To hear Musk say it, the point of his presentation on Twitter is nothing less than to protect civilization as we know it.
“This is not a way to make money,” Musk said at TED. “My strong a priori feeling is that having an extremely reliable and broadly inclusive public platform is critical to the future of civilization.”
Among Musk’s plans for the platform is to make the algorithm open-source and to make it more transparent to users, for example, when confirming or demoting a tweet in their feed. He also said on Thursday that he would like to have more lenient policies on editing content. “I think we want to be very reluctant to delete things and be very careful with permanent bans; a timeout is better,” Musk said.
In some cases, Musk’s stated desire for freer speech on the platform also appears to conflict with his other goals and past actions.
During his interview Thursday, shortly after saying he wanted to keep as much legal speech as possible and would be hesitant to remove users from the platform, Musk said one of his other major priorities was to reduce “spam, phishing, and existing bot armies.” [on] Twitter, “Accounts that, while certainly a nuisance, are nonetheless legal talk. Musk has also previously sought to remove a Twitter account dedicated to tracking the movements of his private jet by offering to pay the new college student managing the account (the account holder declined).
A desperate attempt by musk to attract attention
Musk has long used Twitter to build his brand, connect with his more than 80 million followers, and lure those he considers to be his critics. In this context, his presentation would be consistent with a long history of wealthy individuals buying media properties as a way to prop up their image.
“Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter is Musk’s desperate attempt to gain attention,” David Trainer, CEO of research firm New Constructs, said in an investment note Thursday. “He’s only offering to buy Twitter because Twitter is where Musk is so popular.”
Some Twitter users noted that even Musk’s bid price, $54.20 per share, contained the number “420”, which is notorious for using Musk to make cannabis jokes.
What does Musk do next?
In his Thursday letter to Twitter, Musk said that if the board rejects his offer, he will need to “reconsider my position as a shareholder,” a move that could cause Twitter’s stock to crash. He later hinted on his Twitter account that it could also make life difficult for Twitter’s board of directors if they do battle against his bid, with unambiguous proposals for litigation and the mobilization of other contributors.
“If Twitter’s current Board of Directors takes actions that are contrary to the interests of shareholders, they will be in breach of their fiduciary duty,” Musk said on Twitter Thursday night. “The responsibility they will have will be enormous in scale.”
Musk previously asked on Twitter if a new social media platform was needed and could, if his Twitter pitch fail, “attempt to raise the capital needed to create a similar social media platform to compete with Twitter,” Morningstar Senior Equity analyst Ali Al Maghribi said in an investor note. Thursday. But Al-Maghraby added that it could be a “difficult task” to attract “millions of active daily users, as Twitter did at the end of 2021”.
If Donald Trump’s new social media platform, which has struggled to get off the ground, is evidence, netizens aren’t necessarily clamoring for a new platform that claims to be a free-to-express alternative to big tech companies.
Should the transaction be completed? Golden said, the former employee, who described the billionaire as “incredibly unpredictable” and “a loose cannon.” The possibility of more disruption than usual, she added, “is making people anxious and worried about things changing,” what would this look like? Will this affect our internal experience? How will this be seen in the outside world? ”
She said Twitter’s culture is known to be inclusive and friendly. “With someone like Musk running the show, that puts a lot of that into question.”
Brian Fong contributed to this report.
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