It’s the most commented fact of the week: Elon Musk has bought Twitter. In fact, no other topic has been so much in the conversation since the announcement of Musk’s intentions on the very social network a few weeks ago.
But what are the reasons why Elon Musk has bought Twitter? And what are his plans as regards his brand new social network? In this Befree blog post we will answer these questions and shed some light on Twitter’s future.
Chronicle of a purchase foretold
Elon Musk has always been a user with strong presence on Twitter. His volume and regularity of posts, as well as his number of followers – over 86 million as of April 2022 – clearly show this. Thus, it’s not newsworthy to announce how much Elon Musk has always liked Twitter.
In his messages, especially in March 2022, there was always room for criticism of Twitter and complaint about the platform’s vast untapped potential. Many of his messages complained about what he appreciated as a “lack of free speech.” He even flirted recently with the possibility of creating a new social network to compete with Twitter.
Is a new platform needed?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2022
Finally, the idea was discarded – for the time being -, and the owner of Tesla became the largest shareholder of Twitter on April 4. 9,2% of the shares of the social network in exchange for just over $2.5 billion. Twitter’s board of directors, with Parag Agrawal as CEO, proposed Musk to be part of it, but as Agrawal himself indicated, Elon rejected the proposal.
Elon has decided not to join our board. I sent a brief note to the company, sharing with you all here. pic.twitter.com/lfrXACavvk
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 11, 2022
Elon Musk didn’t make a clear statement about the transaction at any time. Meanwhile, everything was fueled by rumors, hints from Tesla’s owner and confirmations from Twitter members. Until April 14, when Musk announced that he had made an offer to buy 100% of Twitter. The board refused at first and tried to make the sale more expensive. However, on April 25, the transaction became official: Elon Musk has bought Twitter.
The total approximate cost of the purchase is $44 billion, at $54.2 per share. Everything has gone very fast, it has been a very dizzying process. Now it remains to be seen what will happen with Twitter.
Year I aE (after Elon)
It’s still too early to know what changes will be implemented once Elon Musk has bought Twitter. However, we do know the billionaire’s main lines of thought about the social network and which aspects he is not entirely convinced by.
For instance, Musk commented at the time that he understands Twitter as “the de facto public square, the town square” of the modern era, where everyone could express themselves freely. The suspension of Donald Trump’s account back in January 2021 was harshly criticized by the Tesla owner, who promotes total freedom of speech.
Twitter has started to denounce and censor disinformation, fake news, hate speech, harassment or spam. However, many users have raised their voices against these practices. Above all, Elon Musk’s intention is to allow absolutely all speech within the legal framework, despite its purposes.
“I invested in Twitter because I believe in the potential to be the platform for free speech around the world and I believe that free speech is a social imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk stated shortly after becoming the platform’s largest shareholder.
Edit button and human authentication
If there is one implementation that Twitter users have been asking for a long time, it’s the possibility to edit published tweets. Currently, the only way to do this is to delete it and rewrite it from scratch. Musk tweeted shortly after becoming a shareholder whether or not tweeters wanted an edit button, and Twitter itself indicated that they were already working on it before Musk proposed it.
On the other hand, another of the Tesla owner’s open battles is the extinction of spam bots, which Musk called “the most annoying problem on Twitter,” and the authentication of all humans. As a result, Elon Musk wants to make sure that every user of the little blue bird’s social network is authenticated, and his proposal received monumental support.
