Elon Musk can at times be inscrutable, and his politics are elusive, which has made it somewhat difficult to determine exactly what the billionaire would do if he successfully acquired Twitter. But over the past weeks and months, Musk has given more hints about what he would change about Twitter — in interviews, regulatory filings, and, of course, on his personal Twitter account.
Here are the main areas Musk could seek to address:
Free Speech and Content Moderators
Musk has frequently expressed concern that Twitter’s content moderators go too far and intervene too much on the platform, which he sees as the internet’s “de facto town square.”
In the regulatory filing in which he announced his bid to buy Twitter, he wrote: “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.”
He added that he didn’t trust the company’s current leadership to make the changes he saw as necessary and prioritize his ideas about free speech on the platform. “Since making my investment, I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form,” he wrote.
In a tweet Monday, Musk said he hoped even his “worst critics” continued to use the platform “because that is what free speech means.”
The Trump Question
Musk has not commented publicly on how he would handle former President Donald Trump’s banned Twitter account. But his free speech comments have stoked speculation that Twitter under his ownership might reinstate Trump, who was barred from the platform last year. After the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, Twitter said Trump had violated its policies by inciting violence among his supporters. Facebook also banned Trump for the same reason.
The former president, who was known for tweets that criticized opponents and sometimes announced policy changes, is also trying to get his own social media site off the ground. His startup, Truth Social, has struggled to attract users, and the problem could get worse now that Musk has suggested changing content moderation rules on Twitter. Trump said in a recent interview that he probably wouldn’t rejoin Twitter if he could.
The Algorithm
At a TED conference this month, Musk elaborated on his plans to make the company’s algorithm an open-source model, which would allow users to see the code showing how certain posts came up in their timelines.
He said the open-source method would be better than “having tweets sort of be mysteriously promoted and demoted with no insight into what’s going on.”
Musk has also pointed to the politicization of the platform before and recently tweeted that any social media platform’s policies “are good if the most extreme 10 percent on left and right are equally unhappy.”
Who Uses the Platform and How
Before Musk offered to buy Twitter, he expressed concern about the relevance of the platform.
When an account posted a list of the 10 most followed Twitter accounts, including former President Barack Obama and pop stars Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, Musk responded and wrote: “Most of these ‘top’ accounts tweet rarely and post very little content. Is Twitter dying?”
More recently, the Tesla CEO promised in a tweet Thursday that he would “defeat the spam bots or die trying!”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
The board of Twitter has agreed to a $44bn takeover offer from the billionaire Elon Musk.
Musk, who made the shock bid less than two weeks ago, said Twitter had 'tremendous potential' that he would unlock.
He also called for a series of changes from relaxing its content restrictions to eradicating fake accounts.
The firm initially rebuffed Musk's bid, but it will now ask shareholders to vote to approve the deal.
Musk is the world's richest person, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated net worth of $273.6bn mostly due to his shareholding in electric vehicle maker Tesla
which he runs. He also leads the aerospace firm SpaceX.
"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 spambots, and authenticating all humans," he added.
Twitter is nearing a deal to sell itself to Elon Musk, two people with knowledge of the situation said, a move that would unite the world’s richest man with the influential social networking service. An agreement could be announced as soon as Monday, the people said.
Twitter’s board was negotiating with Musk into the early hours of Monday over his unsolicited bid to buy the company, after he began lining up $46.5 billion in financing for the offer last week, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss confidential information. The two sides were discussing details including a timeline to close any potential deal and any fees that would be paid if an agreement were signed and then fell apart, they said.
The discussions followed a Twitter board meeting Sunday morning to discuss Musk’s offer, the people said. Obtaining commitments for the financing was a turning point for how the board viewed Musk’s bid of $54.20 a share, enabling the company’s 11 board members to seriously consider his offer, the people said.
Twitter’s stock rose more than 5% in premarket trading, to about $51.50 a share.
An agreement is not yet final and may still fall apart, but what had initially seemed to be a highly improbable deal appeared to be nearing an endgame. The situation involving Twitter and Musk remains fluid and fast-moving, the people with knowledge of the situation said.
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