Twitter is erroneously seen primarily as a Social Network when it should be seen primarily as an information network.
Twitter serves to disseminate information quickly and can often drive news cycles though from what i can tell it’s widely seen as a cesspit of nonsense but in my experience if you follow the right people the platform can hold a wealth of knowledge from scientists and engineers doing really cool stuff regardless twitter has now grown to become the public square for politicians celebrities and government bodies.
It’s become essential to a select few aspects of modern functioning so when the news broke that tesla CEO Elon Musk had acquired a 9 stake in twitter to become its largest shareholder people collectively raised an eyebrow in this episode let’s see what’s going on and what it could all mean you are watching tv tesla’s elon musk revealed a 9.2 stake in twitter worth nearly three billion dollars making him twitter’s largest shareholder Jack Dorsey twitter’s co-founder only has a 2.25 stake jack who stepped down as Twitter’s CEO in november was the previous largest individual owner interestingly the next biggest owners of twitter after musk a Vanguard group Morgan Stanley and Blackrock.
Elon purchased over 73 million shares on march 14 2022 but the filing was only revealed on Monday April 4th twitter stock surged nearly 30 on the news though twitter so far has remained silent on the event as everyone here is aware of him.
Elon Musk is a very active user on the platform with more than 80 Million Twitter followers he regularly posts memes and gets himself into all kinds of trouble. However what’s interesting and has got people talking is what he posted on the 25th of march 11 days after his then-secret twitter stock purchase on that day Musk tweeted quote free speech is essential to a functioning democracy do you believe twitter rigorously adheres to this principle underneath the poll he wrote the consequences of this poll will be important please vote carefully.
With more than 2 million votes 70 of individuals thought no myself included Elon then asked in one more tweet on the 27th statement given that twitter fills in as the De Facto public town square failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy what should be done is a new platform needed
This tweet we thought as many others did that Elon was planning to start his own social media platform we concluded that it would be a daunting struggle to build up forward momentum and client maintenance yet very few individuals assuming that anybody saw the following move from Elon Musk
So why did he buy twitter ?
According to Ed Boyd a sky news business reporter musk decided to buy the 70 million shares quote on a whim eric gordon a law and business professor at the university of Michigan states that it could be more strategic than that he mentions that twitter could generally just be a regular investment and musk sees growth. Ahead on the other side of the coin gordon states that the purchase could be for non-investment reasons like it was hinted from his previous tweets in march musk may just want to make sure that the platform doesn’t restrain free speech but possibly moreover his speech no chief executive at twitter would refuse to take a call from the organization’s top investor so the buy gives Elon Musk admittance to twitter’s top administration.
Eric Gordon proceeds to say that the buy could cause an issue with regards to the subject of disinformation we likewise talked about this point according to me I like individuals being allowed to express out loud anything they like even thoughts that I hate. As long as it’s anything but a call to savagery or an impelling to cause others difficulty on the off chance that it’s an impractical notion or messed up the right data would ultimately push it out of the circle.
i’m very much aware that this is just the ideal situation the other option is just to ban those opinions but that has unintended consequences it forces those ideas to go underground and fester unchallenged to solidify this concept i mentioned that it was similar to the idea of what Switzerland chose to do with the Russian state media outlet Russia today obviously the Swiss Government didn’t support the ideas expressed but they had the foresight to see that it was better to expose the wrong ideas and counteract them instead of simply prohibiting them.
individuals for the most part emerged with a superior arrangement while two contradicting perspectives have equivalent chance to battle it out however at that point again in such touchy circumstances as a war there are ideas that could have instant negative consequences what should be done then it really is tough.
Who decides what is true and what is false
Who has a monopoly on the truth how do you make sure that politics and corruption doesn’t distort the truth. Just as a broad example if Edward Snowden came out today he would probably be labelled as spreading misinformation and be banned.
Perhaps it’s a deeper societal problem it’s an outcome of the overall trouble of sorting out reality experiencing the same thing predominantly on the grounds that no one can settle on what’s really happening anymore. Elon Musk has not spoken explicitly about how he would change the rules at twitter but i think it’s safe to say if he does do any action at all it would be on the topic of free speech.
Elon Musk And Twitter Woes
An analysis wouldn’t be complete without mentioning that Elon Musk has previously been at odds with regulators about his use of twitter last month he asked a U.S judge to invalidate a Subpoena from protections controllers and furthermore to dispose of a 2018 court arrangement wherein he needed to have pre-endorsement of his twitter posts. His legal advisor had battled in court movements that the sec is encroaching on the tesla president’s first change freedoms the contention began after the tesla originator infamously tweeted that he had ”
Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018
”
Funding secured to take the company private at $420 a share in truth the funding was far from secured and the electric vehicle company remains public but tesla’s stock price jumped. Musk later claimed that the post was just a joke referencing weed but both he and tesla was fined 20 Million dollars each and he was required to step down as the board chairman and provide pre-approval for his tweet. Some analysts state that getting around this issue may be one of the reasons for the twitter purchase
So what could happen next !
industry analysts and legal experts say that musk could begin advocating for changes at twitter immediately if he chooses. On april 5th he would tweet do you want an edit button and most people said yes. Though it should be noted the security document that musk signed indicates that his investment role would be passive meaning he does not plan to take control of the company it remains unclear if he’s going to ask or be invited to join twitter’s board still some analysts speculate that he could alter the status of his investment continuing to buy shares or even buy the company outright.
Analyst for the research company CFRA Angelo Zeno writes
musk’s actual investment is a very small percentage of his wealth and all in buyout should not be ruled out
according to Bloomberg such a decision could be very significant
Twitter is particularly vulnerable to outside pressure because unlike Google, Facebook, Amazon and snap the company’s founders don’t have special voting control over its future.
Bloomberg goes on to cite how elliott management indirectly forced Jack Dorsey from the ceo position. As a result numerous social media users have expressed concern over what musk’s share might mean for the platform but what do you guys think do you think that Elon actually cares about freedom of speechor do you see this as a way to tweet whatever he wants about his companies feel free to discuss in the comment section below okay so that’s about it from me i appreciate all your support for Freemedo after all of these years you can follow me on twitter if you like alright so my name is Prateek DSK and i’ll catch you again soon for the next Article
Read : Why Musk Rejects Twitter’s Offer to Join Board in Surprise Twist On Bloomberg
