After greater than six months of one of the crucial chaotic, high-profile enterprise negotiations in latest reminiscence, it’s lastly actual: Elon Musk, the richest particular person on the earth, is answerable for Twitter.
Musk has reportedly fired CEO Parag Agrawal and two different prime executives, CFO Ned Segal and head of authorized coverage, belief, and security Vijaya Gadde, based on experiences from CNBC the Washington Post, and the New York Times. The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal have reported that the deal closed Thursday evening, though there is no such thing as a official affirmation from Twitter or Musk at time of publication.
The reported acquisition means Musk, troll commander in chief, will keep away from a prolonged authorized battle that might pressure him to testify in courtroom and reveal extra probably embarrassing personal texts together with his buddies in regards to the deal as a part of the authorized discovery course of.
And Twitter received’t have to attend in limbo any longer as an orphaned tech firm pleading for somebody to take possession. It additionally received’t should cope with Musk’s public shitposting directed on the firm’s management. (Musk tweeting a poop emoji at Agrawal could go down as one of the crucial juvenile govt insults of all time.) In the times main as much as the deal closing, Musk modified his tone to be a extra pleasant troll — on Wednesday, he visited Twitter HQ and made the rounds with staff, together with a stunt by which he tweeted a video of himself carrying a sink into the workplace, captioned “Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!” and altered his Twitter bio to learn “Chief Twit.”
But in the event you assume the Musk-Twitter saga is over, you’re sorely mistaken. The actual drama is but to come back.
Until comparatively lately, Musk’s major enterprise pursuits had been in constructing electrical automobiles, rockets, and underground tunnels. Now, he must determine a brand new, very totally different enterprise problem: the best way to successfully run a social media platform that’s utilized by almost 400 million individuals — together with extremely influential world leaders, journalists, and different public figures — and cope with the political speech moderation points that include that. Musk additionally wants to determine a greater enterprise mannequin for the corporate. Twitter has by no means made almost as a lot cash as its social media rivals like Facebook and YouTube, and together with different main tech firms, it has additionally seen a significant decline in its inventory worth prior to now yr. According to a latest report in Reuters, the service’s most lively and profitable customers have been leaving in droves for the reason that pandemic.
So far, Musk has thrown out a variety of concepts, typically within the type of tweets, about how he plans to show Twitter round. Here are a few of the most important ones.
Make Twitter a “free speech” platform. Whatever which means.
Musk’s most constant messaging about why he desires to purchase Twitter is that he desires it to be an open digital city sq. of concepts, with out intervention. He has mentioned that he’ll permit anybody to say something they need on the platform, so long as it’s authorized.
“I think it’s essential to have free speech and to be able to communicate freely,” mentioned Musk at a Twitter worker assembly in June that Vox obtained a recording of.
But it’s not clear precisely how Musk plans to execute on his free speech promise, or what he even means by it.
The latest proliferation of “free speech”-themed platforms like Parler, Truth Social, and Gettr have proven that in the event you let anybody say no matter they need on a social media app, there’s a great likelihood that app may turn out to be a hate-filled, poisonous place — which is why even these comparatively extra lax platforms have some primary content material moderation insurance policies.
There’s a variety of completely authorized stuff you may say that’s disagreeable to have a look at: racial slurs, graphic violent content material, bullying, spam (extra on that later). That sort of content material is usually dangerous for enterprise as a result of most customers — and advertisers — don’t wish to be round it.
Musk is aware of this. Which is why he has mentioned, paradoxically, that he’ll use algorithms to advertise and downrank content material, arguing for “freedom of speech” however not “freedom of reach.”
“I think people should be allowed to say pretty outrageous things that are within the bounds of the law, but then that doesn’t get amplified, it doesn’t get, you know, a ton of reach,” mentioned Musk on the June Twitter workers assembly.
But Musk didn’t clarify how he’ll resolve what sort of content material will get attain and what received’t, and the way will probably be any totally different from what Twitter presently does. Twitter has lengthy struggled with dangerous content material (as has each different main social media platform) — together with an advertiser boycott in 2020 — and in recent times has expanded its insurance policies in opposition to hate speech, harassment, and violent content material.
On Thursday, Musk appeared to attempt to tackle issues about his hands-off method to content material moderation by tweeting a public memo to advertisers. He wrote that Twitter “cannot became a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” and added that he desires Twitter to be a spot “where you can choose your desired experience according to your preferences, just as you can choose, for example, to see movies or play video games ranging from all ages to mature.”
It’s unclear, although, how this choose-your-own-adventure technique works with Musk’s overarching imaginative and prescient for a “common digital town square,” the place persons are debating a variety of beliefs all in the identical place. The stability between permitting free speech and making a social media platform a welcoming place is a tricky one, and Musk has a variety of particulars right here he might want to determine.
Bring again Trump
Musk has mentioned he would reinstate former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, which was banned for his tweets in regards to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
“I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice,” Musk informed the Financial Times in May. “Banning Trump from Twitter didn’t end Trump’s voice. It will amplify it among the right, and that is why it’s morally wrong and flat-out stupid.”
Musk’s feedback about bringing again Trump, paired together with his free speech mantra, has made him common with conservatives who’ve lengthy felt censored by Twitter and different social media firms, even supposing there hasn’t been tangible proof of systematic anti-conservative bias and conservative influencers proceed to have huge followings on platforms like Twitter.
While many conservatives would cheer Trump’s return to Twitter, it will concurrently immediate main resistance from individuals, lots of them liberal, who argue that his tweets pose a menace to a peaceable democracy. We’ll see how Elon is ready to deal with that blowback if he does reinstate the previous president.
Get rid of bots
Musk has promised to repair Twitter’s “bots” subject — which means the prevalence of accounts that publish spam or inauthentic content material like crypto get-rich-quick-schemes and phishing scams.
Bots are a significant identified subject on Twitter, though the corporate has maintained that they symbolize lower than 5 p.c of all accounts. Musk has mentioned he thinks that quantity is way greater, round 20 p.c or extra, and used that as his authorized foundation for initially backing out of the deal.
Outside analysis has proven that whereas the prevalence of bots on Twitter may really be underneath 5 p.c, the attain of those bots in conversations total might be outsized, as excessive as 20 p.c.
Unlike reinstating Trump, eliminating bots might be additionally one in every of Elon’s least controversial plans as a result of it’s arduous to search out individuals who love bots (or at the least the malicious/spammy ones).
“I mean, frankly a top priority I would have is eliminating the spam and scam bots and the bot armies that are on Twitter,” Musk mentioned at a TED convention in April. “I think these influence … they make the product much worse. If I had a dogecoin for every crypto scam I saw, I would have a hundred billion dogecoin.”
Ironically, although Musk mentioned one of many causes he was shopping for Twitter was to eliminate bots, he made the existence of bots the premise for his case to attempt to get out of the Twitter deal, arguing that the corporate didn’t disclose the total extent of the problem.
Like it or not, bots are actually squarely Elon’s downside to resolve.
Make Twitter a “superapp” referred to as X
Musk had mentioned that he desires to satisfy Twitter’s potential by making it rather more than a social media app: turning it right into a “superapp.” The unique superapp is China’s WeChat, which individuals use to do every part from paying their payments to ordering takeout to messaging their buddies.
“You basically live on WeChat in China because it’s so useful and so helpful to your daily life. And I think if we could achieve that, or even close to that with Twitter, it would be an immense success,” mentioned Musk talking at an all-staff Q&A with Twitter staff in June that Recode obtained a recording of.
This is by far one in every of Musk’s most bold plans and the closest factor he has to an actual enterprise technique. Currently, 90 p.c of Twitter’s income is made by means of promoting. Musk mentioned he would wish to make Twitter much less advertising-dependent and make more cash by subscriptions (which Twitter already does), and probably, making a living by means of these superapp transactions.
Musk may have competitors: Snap’s Evan Spiegel and Uber have additionally been pursuing the superapp concept.
It may be rather a lot tougher to construct a real superapp within the US than in China, the place there isn’t as a lot antitrust scrutiny stopping main communication platforms from establishing cross-industry monopolies.
If Musk is to realize any of those targets, he’ll want sensible individuals at Twitter to assist him. With an already demoralized workers and his reported plan to chop 75 p.c of the worker base, that’s going to be tough.
In discussions with a number of present and former Twitter staff, workers described a local weather of chaos and uncertainty. Some staff circulated a petition on Tuesday protesting Musk’s plans to chop 75 p.c of Twitter’s workforce, and “to not be treated as mere pawns in a game played by billionaires.”
One present worker, who requested to not be named for worry of repercussions for talking with the press, mentioned that everybody they know on the firm is both “leaving or planning to leave.”
Many sources Recode spoke to discovered it implausible that Musk may successfully hold Twitter operating with the sorts of drastic workers reductions he’s reportedly deliberate.
“It’s not only operations that will be hit. It takes many people and moving parts to meet basic regulatory and legal compliance in various parts of the world. How does [Musk] plan to continue to do that?” mentioned Sarah T. Roberts, a former researcher at Twitter who left the corporate lately and is now a professor of knowledge research at UCLA.
One Twitter engineer, Manu Cornet, has been posting cartoons on his weblog that replicate the present temper at Twitter.
In one sketch, Cornet drew passengers sitting on a Twitter-branded airplane, crouched and bracing for affect.
If there’s one factor we all know by now in following the Elon-Twitter deal, it’s that what Musk says he’ll do might be very totally different from what he really finally ends up doing. But within the subsequent few months, Twitter staff and Twitter customers ought to be ready for turbulent occasions.