The name of Elon Musk and the name Twitter have been appearing next to each other on the web for years – Musk is an extremely active user of the platform. But for a month now, the topic has been very hot. Twitter (their value was estimated at $ 2.89 billion), becoming its largest shareholder immediately. He was also supposed to sit on the company’s management board,
Elon Musk wants Twitter. Talks with banks are ongoing
But this is not the end. Slightly over He has offered to buy all of Twitter and pay over $ 40 billion for it. This week, we learned the company’s response – it agreed that Musk would buy Twitter, paying for it a trifle of 44 billion dollars.
The decision is official, although of course the issue of taking over Twitter will not be certain until the actual transaction is completed.
Elon Musk is the richest man in the world with a fortune estimated at well over $ 200 billion, but even he cannot spend $ 44 billion just like that. There is simply no such amount in a bank account or in a home safe.
His theoretical fortune is virtual, the vast majority are shares. Real money has yet to be obtained by the billionaire. The purchase of Twitter will probably be financed from several sources – partly from cash from the sale of shares of companies owned by Musk, and mainly from loans taken from the largest banks – incl. in Morgan Stanley.
Musk’s talks with the banks are most likely underway and it is hard to say when they will end. , getting loans for many reasons can be so difficult that Musk will not be able to collect the required amount at all. The billionaire, however, does not seem to care about it and every now and then reveals more details about what Twitter would look like under his rule.
Musk wants to “free” Twitter from censorship
Musk was very eager to talk about the reasons why he wanted to acquire Twitter right after submitting the offer. In an interview at the TED conference, he explicitly admitted that he did not buy the website in order to make money on it, but that it would become “a mainstay of freedom of speech on the Internet”.
Musk has previously complained, inter alia, on the presence of a moderation on Twitter that prevents posts from being as “free” as they would like. In late March, the billionaire posted a poll on Twitter asking fans if the platform was completely free of expression. About 70 percent. of over 2 million voters said no.
Musk has long regretted that this is the result of his absurd tweets from the past. In 2018, he announced, for example, that he was withdrawing Tesla from the stock exchange, buying all shares, and then – when the company’s valuation shot up – he changed his mind and left it on the stock exchange.
It can be assumed that if Musk actually takes over Twitter, one of his first decisions will be to “liberate” the website, i.e. liberalize the (already quite liberal) rules of the regulations, significantly reduce (if not remove) tweet moderation and unblock people’s accounts banned for gross violation of the regulations, e.g. for inciting violence or hate speech. Such moves will probably gain him many supporters and opponents. For example, the extreme right in Poland and the US are already happy with the billionaire’s assurances, and they are worried, among others, by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International.
Theoretically, the ability to write on Twitter whatever your heart desires can cause the platform to be flooded with lies, fake news and hate speech. On the other hand, it cannot be ruled out that Musk has some idea of how to reconcile full freedom of speech with the restriction of harmful content in practice. Anyway, the changes may affect the outflow of advertisers, which we wrote about in the following text:
Buying Twitter to be able to edit tweets?
The second major change Musk talks about often would be the introduction of the ability to edit tweets. The billionaire admitted in mid-April that he would like the statements to be editable for at least some time after publication. In addition, when editing the post, all likes and retweets should be reset, according to Tesla’s boss.
Musk is known to frequently post tweets when influenced by emotions, which he is not always proud of afterwards. The ability to change entries over time would be quite a useful function for him. Musk also reiterates that, in his opinion, the algorithm for showing content on the Twitter home page should be made public to increase the transparency of the website’s activities.
Musk also does not like the presence of ads on social networks. It is true that he did not explicitly admit that he would like to get rid of them completely from Twitter, but he suggested it in one of the tweets. “The power of corporate influence on politics [Twittera- red.] it’s much greater if Twitter is dependent on ad money, “he wrote. The post was removed shortly after.
Musk writes a lot about Twitter on Twitter in recent days, but his statements are not specific. He wrote on Monday that he hopes “even his worst critics will stay on Twitter because that’s what freedom of speech is all about.”
A day later he added that by “freedom of speech he means what is within the law” and that he himself is “against censorship that goes far beyond the law”. On Wednesday, he wrote that Truth Social (a right-wing social network founded by Donald Trump after his account was blocked by Twitter) exists “because Twitter censored freedom of speech.”
Soon after, he added that Twitter should be 100 percent. politically neutral. “For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which in practice means equal rights for the extreme right and the far left,” he wrote.
Source: Gazeta
Ricardo is a renowned author and journalist, known for his exceptional writing on top-news stories. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he is known for his ability to deliver breaking news and insightful analysis on the most pressing issues of the day.
