What Does Elon Musk Actually Want To Do With Twitter?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Twitter is now owned by the world's richest man. There's a lot of speculation about what direction he will take the social media platform, but what has he actually said?

FREE SPEECH

"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," Musk said in a statement on Twitter, right after Twitter announced they had accepted Musk's offer.

He has often been critical of Twitter in the past for "failing to adhere to free speech principles". Navigating the line between a platform that protects its users by banning hate speech (and threats, etc) and one that allows more freedom of speech is tougher than Musk might imagine. Twitter and Facebook have had to navigate a US President spreading misinformation about the 2020 election, and then misinformation around COVID, for example. They chose to label tweets as misleading or false, and remove users (including Trump) who continued to break the rules of the platform.

Other social media networks that have dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to free speech have found shortly afterward that that's not as simple as it sounds. Parler, for instance, aimed to be a place where speech was completely free. It wasn't long before they had to ban people for posting pictures of their own fecal matter, and prevent people from having the username "CumDumpster".

Link to tweet

https://www.iflscience.com/technology/what-does-elon-musk-actually-want-to-do-with-twitter/

[Javaman]

1. musk wants his own personal pravda. nt

[budkin]

2. "Own the libs"

Seriously.

[SoonerPride]

3. He wants to make money

[FSogol]

4. He wants to troll everyone who disagrees with him.

One of the same reasons Trumpy had Truff Social created. (The other reason is grifting.)

[Torchlight]

5. I think he just wants to bag it and place its head over his fireplace.

[Act_of_Reparation]

6. Musk doesn't actually do anything of value.

Interest in his companies is largely a product of interest in him, which he has generated through an uninterrupted trajectory of increasingly cringeworthy stunts and media spectacles.

He has to do shit like this to keep people talking about him.

[geardaddy]

9. Bingo!

[Chainfire]

7. It is all about the exercise of power.

[maxsolomon]

8. He will allow Trump back on.

However, Trump is past his sell-by date, the bloom is off the rose, the ship has sailed, etc. His schtick is tired AF.

Musk will learn (maybe) that his purchase is a nail in the coffin of Twitter. We've passed peak Tweet.

[Azathoth]

10. Musk is attuned to "It" issues

Issues that are hot in certain niche communities but on which the larger business community are still behind the curve.

Online payment processing
Electric cars/green energy
The need for a private Boeing-style replacement for our largely-federalized rocketry industry
Etc.

He's doing the same thing with Twitter, except instead of taking his cues from the IT or rocketry or sustainable energy communities, he's taking them from the red-pilled right who have built a grievance religion around their loss of "free speech" on mainstream social media.

There's no real indication that, aside from "defeating the spambots" and removing most content moderation, he has any particular vision for Twitter... which is why Tesla stock is taking a plunge. There's a lot of people looking at how much he spent -- and how fast the Twitter board were willing to accept once they knew he was serious -- and wondering where the deep innovation that will pay for this deal is going to come from.

The whole thing feels like an impulsive vanity project.