Elon Musk didn’t ban journalists for doxxing. He did it as a result of he can.

There are so many questions as we speak after a wild night time on Twitter, which noticed Elon Musk droop a number of journalists’ accounts, citing violation of his firm’s anti-doxxing insurance policies. Twitter additionally shut down its Spaces audio chat function, which journalists — together with at the least one who Musk had suspended — and Musk used final night time to have a reside dialogue in regards to the suspensions.

We can’t listing all of the mysteries. But right here’s a sampling:

Like I stated, this listing can get very lengthy. But right here’s what we do know: No matter what any of the solutions to these questions turn into, they received’t actually matter within the Elon Musk Twitter period. Because the one factor that issues within the Elon Musk Twitter period is what Musk believes and does at any given second. So if you happen to assume the way forward for Twitter is essential, it’s essential come to grips with that now.

This is a really apparent level. I’m belaboring it right here as a result of I believe that in Musk’s possession we’ve got typically failed to totally grasp it: No matter what he says or what loads of individuals who (nonetheless) admire him assume should be the case, Musk has no actual plan for Twitter. And no matter he says or tweets may change in every week or an hour as a result of he’s modified his thoughts. Or perhaps he by no means believed it within the first place.

If you intently adopted Musk earlier than he purchased Twitter, you’ll find out about his historical past of erratic and sometimes damaging habits. But it turned absolutely obvious to everybody this spring when he first introduced that he was becoming a member of Twitter’s board, then stated he wasn’t, then stated he was shopping for the corporate, after which floated out a marketing strategy to buyers that had zero connection to actuality. And if you happen to weren’t actually monitoring any of that, you absolutely knew in regards to the months he spent this summer time making an attempt not to purchase Twitter, the place he tried to get out of a signed contract with a sequence of clear lies.

Anyway. We’re right here now. And so long as Musk owns Twitter, none of that is going to vary. He’s going to get up and tweet one thing and later that night time he’ll say it by no means occurred, or that up is down and black is white.

You can dutifully level out that he’s contradicting himself — final night time, all of us famous, once more, that he says he’s in favor of free speech, however he doesn’t help it relating to the issues he owns — however that received’t matter. The solely factor that issues is what Musk does within the second. That’s the constant half.

This can also be one of many actual parallels we’ve seen between Musk and Donald Trump, who additionally lies when he opens his mouth, and who additionally wielded monumental energy erratically. Unlike Musk, nonetheless, when Trump was the chief of the free world there have been some restrictions on his habits. Sometimes they had been structural, like a Congress or a courtroom system that blocked a few of his efforts; typically they had been as flimsy as members of his internal circle who (say they) ignored or slow-walked his instructions. And voters, in the long run, acted to take away him from workplace after 4 years.

There’s none of that going through Musk proper now, although. There’s nobody in his internal circle who disagrees with him, and anybody who works for him who tells him no will get fired. And externally, there’s virtually no drive to curtail his habits. The one exception was the US courtroom system, which did ultimately compel him to honor his buy settlement and truly purchase Twitter. (It’s potential that we may see one other model of this manifest down the road if the federal authorities determines that Musk’s Twitter is violating an FTC consent decree that Twitter’s earlier administration signed off on. But historically, Musk has acted as if he’s not sure by regulators.)

But that’s it: Users and advertisers can howl and bail, however he doesn’t should hearken to them so long as he has sufficient cash to fund the operation — he simply offered one other $3.6 billion in Tesla shares to maintain this going, and despite the fact that the worth of Tesla shares has been plummeting just lately, he owns quite a lot of them. His banks, pals, and allies who helped him fund the deal within the first place? They can grouse, too, however that doesn’t matter to Musk. All of this retains going till the day he decides he’s carried out with Twitter.

If he ever does. Bloomberg’s Ashlee Vance, who is aware of Musk properly and wrote a complete biography of him in 2015, thinks Musk won’t ever admit defeat: “I just cannot see him giving up,” Vance advised me.

I want I may let you know a special story. That, say, Musk is in turmoil mode now, rolling up his sleeves and getting hardcore together with his new buy. And that after he’s out of this section Twitter will quiet down, simply in time for the 2024 election cycle. Or that we may all remedy this by transferring to a Twitter various or creating our personal Twitter on the blockchain, in order that no billionaire will ever have single-handed management of our messaging platform.

But I believe we’re higher off if we face actuality on actuality’s phrases: One of the richest males in historical past purchased one thing many people use and like. Because he may. And now he’s going to run it primarily based on his whims. Because he can.