Elon Musk is one among the tech sector’s most inscrutable americans—as evidenced by his most modern resolution to alter into Twitter’s greatest shareholder. On Tuesday, four weeks after he provided a 9.2 p.c stake in the social networking platform via the acquisition of nearly about 73.5 million shares at a entire price of around $2.4 billion, Musk joined Twitter’s board, the attach he’ll remain via at the least 2024.
Musk’s shift from passive shareholder to member of the board is colossal—and he now owns extra than four times as noteworthy Twitter stock as the firm’s founder, Jack Dorsey. (Musk’s stake modified into handiest announced on Monday, which is open air the time physique required by regulators, one thing consultants mumble is a “slam dunk” violation of business laws.) His transfer has furthermore left many questioning what’s next for Twitter.
Musk joined relieve in June 2009 and has accumulated 80.7 million followers to this point. Nonetheless despite such recognition on the platform, he has a longstanding fancy-despise relationship with it. In July 2016, he professed his fancy for Twitter. Then in February 2017 he described it as a “hater Hellscape.” By December 2017, he modified into relieve to loving it. In February 2019, Musk replied to Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to claim that “Twitter rocks.” Nonetheless in July 2020, he tweeted that Twitter “sucks,” staunch months after announcing that Dorsey had an even heart.
Musk’s cool and warm relationship with Twitter sheds minute light on why he has provided into the firm and joined its board, despite the real fact that theories abound. Musk did no longer reply to a search data from for say.
One label may perchance maybe perchance perchance smartly be mark in his most modern Twitter posts. The entrepreneur has lengthy been an open e-book on the social network, announcing in 2018 that “my tweets are actually what I’m thinking in the intervening time, no longer carefully crafted corporate bs, which is fully staunch banal propaganda.”
And most modern tweets have been directed at the platform’s future route. Since attempting to search out his stake in the firm, Musk has polled his followers about whether or no longer Twitter may perchance maybe perchance perchance accrued open source its algorithm for scrutiny and whether or no longer the platform adheres to the thought of free speech. He furthermore acknowledged in tweets to other users that he worries about the influence Twitter’s algorithm can have on public discourse.
That rhetoric has raised the hopes of correct-soar politicians who’ve been banned from the platform or seen their colleagues censored and sounded scare bells for folks alive to that the strides Twitter has made in shutting down despise speech may perchance maybe perchance perchance now be reversed.
“It’s beautiful evident that Elon is attempting to fabricate a play on free speech,” says crypto investor Maya Zehavi, who has held Twitter stock since 2019. “I mediate he would doubtlessly try to leverage his energy on the board to substantiate that that Twitter doesn’t try to educate extra restrictive censoring suggestions than they settle on to.” That reasoning holds up for Adam C. Johnson, who is a professor of laws at the College of Michigan and makes a speciality of corporate and securities laws. “I don’t mediate there’s any colossal mystery about why he’s made the funding,” he says. “His tweets would suggest he thinks he has suggestions that can perchance perchance perchance enhance Twitter.”
