†I love Twitter,” tweeted Elon Musk on Dec. 21 in 2017.
“Then you buy it anyway,” jokes Dave Smith, an American radio producer.
musks reaction: “How much is it?”
It’s not a joke. More than four years later, Twitter is actually in the hands of Elon Musk. The richest person on Earth, who also owns a car brand, an aerospace and tunnel construction company, and a satellite network, now has his own social medium. With potentially major implications for the users, who will be led by a convinced libertarian with Musk (50). Musk believes that social media has restricted the freedom of expression of its users too much in recent years.
On Monday, the Twitter board approved an offer totaling $44 billion (EUR 41 billion), or $54 per share. Just before the announcement, at 9 p.m. Dutch time, trading in the Twitter share on Wall Street was halted.
Initially, Twitter tried to oppose this unsolicited takeover, through a protective construction. After Musk got banks to co-finance a deal and chatted to groups of shareholders via video meetings last weekend, Twitter agreed. Rejecting a reasonable offer would face lawsuits from angry investors. While the prices of competing tech companies such as Google and Amazon have increased tenfold over the past decade, Twitter’s share has barely increased in price since its IPO in 2013.
The deal still needs to be approved by US regulators. There is a good chance that this will succeed: Musk does not own any other social media companies that could stand in the way of a takeover.
Birthplace of the hashtag
Founded in 2006, Twitter is the birthplace of the hashtag and has grown into an influential platform. Not because it’s so big – the company has 217 million followers, barely 10 percent of Americans use Twitter – but because the network is popular with politicians, media and lobbyists. Those who want to influence public opinion do so on Twitter, where every message is public. Elon Musk, with more than 83 million followers, masters this trick like no other.
Twitter, Musk wrote in his first offer message, is a place where everyone in the world can express their opinion, indispensable for a well-functioning democracy. “It’s very important to have an inclusive arena where anything can be said,” Musk said in an interview at a TED conference this month. “Twitter has de facto become a digital town square. It is very important that people can speak freely within the limits of the law.”
This position would mean a radical change of course for Twitter, which has recently intervened more strongly when users break the house rules of the platform. To prevent fake news, calls to violence, spam and trolls, the network regularly intervenes by blocking accounts or deleting tweets. The network was the first to label Donald Trump’s statements as “false” and warned of fake news the US president was spreading through his account. Ultimately, Trump was permanently banned from Twitter in January 2021.
This week it emerged that PVV leader Geert Wilders was temporarily suspended by Twitter over a tweet to Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in which he called Pakistani Muslims violent and described the Prophet Mohammed as “fake”. Twitter should work with temporary “timeouts” and not with permanent bans, according to Musk. By that logic, Trump could get his Twitter account back before the upcoming US presidential election.
frustration
Musk himself has often been called back by the SEC, because he shared information about Tesla via tweets that had an impact on the stock price of the company he founded. Musk had to step down as chairman of Tesla. As punishment, he must first submit price-sensitive tweets to a lawyer. Out of that frustration, it seems, sprang the idea of starting a social network or getting involved with Twitter.
Musk bought shares in Twitter under the radar and worked his way up to become the largest shareholder. Musk declined a seat on the Twitter board. That would limit his influence and prohibit him from acquiring more than 15 percent.
By taking Twitter off the stock exchange, he can make drastic changes without critical investors. Musk is known for polling the mood of his Twitter followers before making decisions. You never know with Musk, who is often described as the biggest Twitter troll of them all, whether it’s serious or not.
Twitter should become less dependent on advertisements and sell more paid subscriptions, according to Musk. Tweets should also be longer than 280 characters and as a user you should be able to change tweets afterwards. In addition, Musk wants to give the outside world insight into the way Twitter ranks messages in everyone’s timeline.
On Monday, before trading in the stock was halted, Twitter’s price rose towards Musk’s bid of more than $54 a share. Investors seem to have more faith in Musk than in the Twitter leadership. The network has had few commercial successes in the past ten years. Whether the richest person in the world scores better? “I’m not doing the economic value,” Musk said. He wants to save democracy first, and then to Mars.