He achieved his purpose. Elon Musk He took control of Twitter, after agreeing to buy it for 44 billion dollars, with money from his pocket and bank loans with the guarantee of Tesla. Now everyone is waiting to know what will be the first moves that the controversial tycoon will make on the social network, which has 300 million users.
MORE INFORMATION: Trump says NO to Twitter despite his buyout by Elon Musk
Although Twitter’s board initially refused, even with a move for the world’s richest man to own more than 15% of the shares, it ended up succumbing to the tempting offer.
Elon Musk is now the owner and a new Twitter era is expected, but what does he want to do? Why did he buy the social network? How can this benefit Donald Trump?
WHAT ARE ELON MUSK’S PLANS WITH TWITTER?
The Musk’s main agenda for Twitteras the tycoon himself has stated, is the “freedom of expression”. The richest man in the world has said that he wants to keep the social network as it is and adapt it to the vision of him as a “confessed absolutist of freedom of expression”.
In his letter addressed to the board of the aforementioned social network, at the beginning of April 2022, Musk mentioned that “Twitter is the platform for freedom of expression around the world”but this “social imperative” cannot be done if Twitter remains in its current form, and therefore “needs to become a private company”.
Goodbye trolls?
And as part of that plan, the world’s richest man has said he even hopes his “worst naysayers” stay on Twitter because “that’s what freedom of expression means.” It has announced that it will make adjustments to the service to make it easier to use the social network, such as an edit button and the removal of “spam bots” that send overwhelming numbers of unwanted tweets.
What does freedom of expression mean for Elon Musk?
In his tweet posted on the night of April 26, he said: “By ‘freedom of expression’, I simply mean what is within the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less freedom of expression, they will ask the government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.” And he added that this has generated many antibodies.
Politics
Beyond that, the background to the purchase could also have political overtones. And it is that Musk has made it clear that his main objective in buying Twitter is support unrestricted expression and reduce user bans or removal of individual tweets. That brings back the memory that, on January 8, 2021, Twitter permanently banned to the former president of the United States, donald trump, “because of the risk of further incitement to violence” after the riots in the Capitol.
Although Musk has said he prefers to stay out of politics, according to a BBC World analysis, There are strong reasons to suspect that would reactivate Trump’s account. The tycoon applauded the former president two years ago, when Trump supported Tesla’s plans to reopen a car plant in California during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Subscription
Musk is more interested in subscriptions, which could be a tough sell in an environment where major social networks are free to use.
Twitter users can decide if they prefer their data not to be used for monetization and are willing to pay for it, but it’s a gamble.
He also likes cryptocurrencies. Could you use the platform to incentivize payments in volatile and unprotected currencies like bitcoin?
HOW MANY TWITTER FOLLOWERS DOES ELON MUSK HAVE?
Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has 87 million followers on his Twitter account, where he posts messages continuously. He even fought for the purchase of the social network of the little blue bird, he did it on his behalf.
His posts have caused controversy, including being banned by the US Securities and Exchange Commission from tweeting about Tesla affairs, after one tweet wiped $14 billion from its stock price. On another occasion he was sued for defamation after a tweet in which he called a diver who participated in the rescue of a group of boys in a cave in Thailand in 2018 a “pedophile” (a case that Musk ultimately won).
HOW DID THE PURCHASE OF TWITTER AFFECT TESLA?
Elon Musk will be the new owner of Twitter, after first becoming the main shareholder of this social network at the beginning of the month. The company has accepted the offer of the boss of Tesla, which materializes in about 44,000 million dollars.
However, his decision has not gone down well with Tesla, which has already been experiencing problems. The Tesla company fell 11% on Wall Street this Tuesday and dragged other large technology included in the Nasdaq index, one day after the purchase of the social network.
Musk’s electric vehicle company dropped 11.06% or more than $110 of its stock value at mid-session, while Twitter fell 3.50% and other big names like Netflix fell (-4.9% ), Amazon (-4%), Alphabet (-3.2%), Apple (-2.7%) and Meta (-2%).
