When billionaire Elon Musk offered over $40 billion to acquire Twitter, it raised a lot of questions as to what a successful entrepreneur like Musk could want with the social media platform.
“This is not about the economics. This is about the future of civilization,” said Musk in an onstage interview at the TED2022 conference. He stated he aimed to transform Twitter into an inclusive arena for free speech.
But experts and analysts feel there could be more strategic reasons behind Musk’s unprecedented move on Twitter.
“Musk is very focused on missions that could improve life on Earth and help make humans a spacefaring civilization,” notes technology analyst Gene Munster of Loup Ventures. “He believes that for these missions to succeed, humanity needs a digital town square to debate ideas constructively.”
Twitter has the potential to be that town square, feels Munster. With over 200 million daily active users, it can allow rapid mass exchange of ideas from people across countries and backgrounds.
But in its current form with opaque policies and political bias, Twitter tends to limit free speech instead of encouraging it, believes Musk.
“A top priority I would have is eliminating the spam and scam bots and the bot armies that are on Twitter,” Musk said at the conference. “They make the product much worse.”
Musk aims to make Twitter’s algorithms more transparent and reward genuine contributors on the platform. “It’s worth considering having some sort of authentication that proves you are a real person,” he said.
Driving innovation through Twitter
However, clearing up such problems with Twitter may not be enough motivation for Musk who seems to be at the peak of his success leading cutting-edge companies like Tesla and SpaceX.
“Musk is likely looking at driving innovation through Twitter,” says tech industry observer Swapnil Bhartiya. “He has a very futuristic vision and he sees technologies like AI and VR/metaverse playing a big role.”
As one of the most influential personalities on Twitter, Musk could see the platform’s potential to collaborate with and test applications from his other companies.
“It can provide a testbed for creation and collaboration for innovations we cannot even imagine today – things like Starlink connecting people globally or neural link-typed brain-machine interfacing,” adds Bhartiya.
Experts feel Musk may integrate SpaceX’s satellite broadband service Starlink with Twitter to expand internet access. “The network can then be a platform for new creative ideas,” says Munster.
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Twitter unbound by public investors
Musk would also like more autonomy with Twitter, free from the pressures of public shareholders and stock price expectations.
“This is not a way to sort of make money,” he said at TED. “My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization.”
But taking Twitter private may not be easy given the social media company’s initial resistance to Musk’s offer.
“He will face huge challenges navigating the turbulent waters of social media and risk alienating users if he pushes too far,” opines Mike Proulx, VP of research at market research firm Forrester.
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Proulx feels if Musk forcibly buys Twitter at a higher price, there is a risk he may extract more value from it by cutting jobs or extracting data to serve other priorities.
“That would undermine public trust in the platform,” cautions Proulx. “Twitter plays an outsized role in shaping narratives inside and outside of media, politics, culture, activism, and societal discourse.”
“Musk should tread very carefully so as not to undermine all the progress it has made over the years.”
