Elon Musk bought Twitter for 45B USD; the social network on which he already has 89 million followers. Makes me wonder how many close friends he has? He is paying a premium of 38% above the share price of the company. So will he be able to unlock value on his investment, or will it be a matter of overreach?
FOLLY OR FORESIGHT?
The world’s richest man stands soon to control the world’s most influential media platform, a venture Elon Musk claims to have undertaken not for profit but for the good of society, writes @mollyesque
Can this bird fly higher? I think that is the central question. Musk says he has many ideas to improve Twitter and make it even more relevant. He also promises to respect free speech, which drives the more left-leaning politicians in America into a frenzy, because to them it is just twitter-speak for allowing Donald Trump back on Twitter.
Musk, the world’s richest man certainly did not take long to line up the cash for this outsize deal. In a flash it makes him one of the most powerful ‘press barons’ in the world. He reminds me of Maye West, who liked to underline her outsize everything with this saying [a favourite of mine]. “When I’m good, I’m very good; but when I am bad, I’m BETTER.” Take that to the bank.
Twitter can be a brutal place, as these two tweets illustrate. It’s from interactions with @realLizUSA – a Trump Twitter stormtrooper whom he uses because he is banned from Twitter and his own hopeless social media platform TruthSocial is such a disaster, it is even embarrassing him.
Replying to
SITTING ON THE FENCE
I’m not going to pretend to know what will happen. I do not even know if this is a good or a bad thing. I am going to do, what I never do – I’m going to be a fence-sitter on this one, or at least not be an armchair critic. In any event, Twitter watchers in investment circles have said for some considerable time now, that Twitter is a badly run business.
This is what Elon Musk said. If he sticks to this as his central motivational rationale, then the bird may soar – just maybe:
"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential -- I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it."