Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, wants the world to know that Twitter is changing.
Twitter announced that it had reached an agreement with Musk, who will buy the influential social media site for $54.20 per share in cash, valuing it at approximately $44 billion. Musk made the statement after declining a position on Twitter’s board of directors. Musk, who owns 9.2 per cent of Twitter, is one of the company’s significant shareholders and will reportedly become interim CEO if the acquisition is completed, according to CNBC, citing anonymous sources.
The agreement between Twitter and Musk has spurred debate about what this could imply for the social media site’s future. The sale appeared doubtful at first, but Twitter’s board allegedly began to take the offer more seriously as Musk gave more specifics about how he planned to finance the potential acquisition.
As other Twitter users, Musk hasn’t been hesitant about giving his thoughts on what needs to be corrected on the site, tweeting his candid comments to his 83 million followers.
Dorsey, a well-known player in the IT business, has expressed respect for Musk’s usage of Twitter, saying that the billionaire “shares his views openly” on the platform. Musk’s openness, though, has placed him in hot water. The US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Musk in 2018 for alleged securities law violations after he tweeted that he had “financing secured” to take Tesla private. Musk and the SEC negotiated a deal that required some of his tweets to be preapproved, but his lawyers attempted to terminate that arrangement.
Content moderation
Musk has been tweeting about what is and isn’t allowed on Twitter even before he revealed his ownership in the firm. For example, at the end of March, Musk posted a poll asking whether people thought Twitter protected free expression. He stated that the poll results will be “very important.”
Musk stated on Twitter, “A functional democracy requires free expression. Do you believe Twitter strictly follows this principle?” Approximately 70% of the 2 million responders said no. The First Amendment does not apply to private companies like Twitter, which can make their own rules concerning what is permissible.
Cryptocurrency scam
Cryptocurrency frauds have been a thorn on Twitter’s side, and they have personally affected Musk.
Scammers have used bogus identities on numerous social media sites to imitate Musk to induce users to give over cryptocurrency. Musk’s account was also among the high-profile Twitter accounts that were hacked in 2020 to promote a bitcoin hoax.
Musk complained in January that Twitter was wasting effort on things like profile images that feature non-fungible tokens, assets confirmed on a blockchain, rather than combatting crypto spambots.
Edit button
Twitter users have long demanded the ability to edit their tweets for typos and other errors, but the feature has not been high on the company’s priority list. Twitter’s $3-per-month Twitter Blue subscription level does feature the ability to undo tweets.
Musk brought up the concept of an edit button again on April 4, tweeting another poll. “Do you want an edit button?” he said, misspelling yes and no. More than 4 million votes were cast, with nearly three-quarters in favour of the proposal.
