After months of controversy, Elon Musk’s $44 billion (£38 billion) acquisition of Twitter has been finalized, a moment nobody was certain would ever occur.
He proclaimed the great news on Twitter, of course, and modified his bio to read “Chief Twit” and declared “the bird is released.” As far as he is concerned, the assignment has been completed.
As of yet, there has been no official confirmation, and the quiet from Twitter’s headquarters has been deafening.
But possibly nobody is available to deliver that email – Mr. Musk is said to have already sacked chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, and legal and policy executive Vijay Gadde, and chairman Bret Taylor’s LinkedIn profile indicates he is no longer with the company.
So, how might Mr. Musk’s Twitter account appear?
A digital public plaza
Spam and exceptional app recommendations
Twitter has long refuted Mr. Musk’s accusations that the official number of spam and bot accounts on its platform is significantly too low. Mr. Musk has railed against the number of spam and bot accounts he believes plague the service. He could order a mass cull, but it would likely harm everyone’s all-important follower count, making it a potentially unpopular first step.
Perhaps his most intriguing clue to date is that his new company will be the beginning of “X, the everything application.” Many have speculated that he is referring to the construction of a “super app” similar to China’s WeChat – a one-stop-shop for social media, messaging, financial, and food ordering – in a nutshell, everyday life administration.
The West lacks such a service, although one could argue that Meta’s WhatsApp and even Facebook Messenger are stealthily transforming into multifunctional services.
Mr. Musk has not concealed his affection for cryptocurrencies, and Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, is a proud investor in his ambition (according to the press release I received just after 05:00 BST).
Could Twitter be used by businesses to accept cryptocurrency payments? That would be a boon for crypto enthusiasts and a nightmare for others who caution that crypto remains an unregulated and unprotected risky investment.
We do know that Mr. Musk is visionary, unpredictable, ambitious, and innovative. We can promise that changes will begin to occur, and some Twitter users have already stated that the new leadership will push them away.
“We wanted flying automobiles, but we got 140 characters,” stated tech sector investor Peter Thiel, long before the meme “expectations against reality” became popular. With Mr. Musk, we may receive both.
Thursday’s website update featured an uncommonly modest letter from Mr. Musk to potential advertisers. In it, he stated that he purchased Twitter to “assist humanity” and that he desired for “civilization to have a digital town square.” Likewise, he acknowledged that his mission may fail.
The fact that he addressed his letter explicitly to Twitter advertisers shows he plans, for the time being at least, to adhere to Twitter’s digital advertising revenue model. This is even though revenue is beginning to decline for heavyweights such as Alphabet, the owner of Google, and Meta, the owner of Facebook, as the global financial crisis bites and corporations have less money to spend on marketing.
In the past, he has expressed his desire to reduce moderation so that more voices can be heard more openly in a bombastic manner (Twitter has long been accused of favoring left-leaning, liberal messages, which it denies).
Could he decide to reinstate some of the more contentious tweeters who were banned by the previous administration, such as former US president Donald Trump (who previously stated that he had no desire to return) and his pal Kanye West?
I am not so sure. Mr. Musk now presents a more limited vision, stating that the platform must remain “welcoming,” must adhere to national laws, and must not become “a lawless hellscape.
West was banned for anti-Semitism, and Mr. Trump was “permanently suspended” for encouraging violence – this sounds like a scene from hell to me.
