Elon Musk has bought Twitter. Now what?

Elon Musk has promised to make big changes to Twitter as part of his goal of making it an ‘everything app’ with one billion users. Tech experts say he has his work cut out, Bevan Hurley reports

Elon Musk has closed a $44bn deal to take Twitter private (Getty/AFP)

Elon Musk’s $44bn Twitter takeover has finally gone through, and is likely to bring the biggest changes to the social media company since its launch in 2006.

After six months of legal sparring, Musk closed the deal before a Friday 5pm deadline and avoided a high-stakes showdown in the Delaware Chancery Court.

Late on Thursday, Musk oustered three top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal.

Then on Friday morning, Musk confirmed the deal had gone through with a succinct five word tweet: “Let the good times roll”.

The 51-year-old has promised profound and immediate changes to the way Twitter is run, as part of his grand ambitions of quadrupling the number of active users on the platform to one billion and turn a niche platform favoured by journalists and politicians into a global digital town square.

Other plans include loosening content moderation controls, eliminating bots, restoring banned accounts and removing what he describes as Twitter’s “far left” bias.

And that’s just for starters. In tweets and text messages to investors, Musk has said he wants Twitter to become an “everything app”, where users go to complete daily tasks from encrypted messaging to peer-to-peer payments, e-commerce purchases to social networking.

The acquisition is likely to usher in dramatic changes to the user experience that will likely please some and infuriate others, Jason Moser, a senior analyst at The Motley Fool who closely follows the tech sector, tells The Independent.

“He’s buying this in order to inflict a lot of change and that requires a lot of work. Hopefully it’s something he’s committed to, he can be a bit mercurial,” Mr Moser said in an interview this week. “He may be biting off more than he can chew in the near term, it’s not like everything is humming along nicely at Twitter.”

By some estimates, the true market value of Twitter stock is around half the $54.20-per-share Mr Musk and his fellow investors are handing over.

Also worth noting that a possible, albeit unlikely, outcome from this conflict is nuclear war

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2022

He has already sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla shares, and waived due diligence before agreeing to the deal.

“Given the price he’s paying, he is going to need to figure out how to monetise the platform more effectively,” says Mr Moser. “Sometimes he shoots first and aims second, and that might have got himself into a little bit of trouble here.”

A ‘toxic place’

Musk has said he’s a “free speech absolutist”, (despite blocking many of his detractors on the platform), and has suggested that Twitter should allow any content that doesn’t break local speech laws.

“My preference is to hew close to the laws of countries in which Twitter operates,” he tweeted on 9 May. “If the citizens want something banned, then pass a law to do so, otherwise it should be allowed.”

Expanding on what he meant by this at an event in May, Musk said any speech that is “destructive to the world” or “wrong and bad” could be subject to penalties.

Content moderators have tried to rein in racism, disinformation and vitriol on the site. By opening the floodgates, experts warn Mr Musk could risk alienating newcomers.

Elon Musk had to complete his deal to buy Twitter by 28 October to avoid a trial (Getty Images)

Mr Moser says that Musk will likely follow the lead of companies like Google and Facebook by using artificial intelligence to moderate harmful content.

“Everybody just loves to say free speech, but it must come with consequences,” he says. “I think Twitter has a bad reputation right now as being a fairly toxic place, if you go against the grain, people will come down on you.”

Musk complained about the number of bots, or spam accounts, on Twitter while attempting to derail the acquisition, and has promised to cleanse the site of fakes.

“I think that Twitter unfortunately is riddled with that stuff,” Mr Moser says.

Eliminating the fake accounts would go a long way to making it a more engaging platform, he believes.

Mr Musk has also suggested he would make the algorithm publicly available for users to view and suggest changes to.

Trump’s return

Along with relaxing what’s said on the platform, Musk has also said he will move to reinstate former president Donald Trump and others who have been permanently banned from Twitter.

During his presidency, Mr Trump frequently used the app to fire political appointees, taunt world leaders, and spread misinformation.

After he used Twitter to incite rioters on January 6, Mr Trump was suspended and ultimately banned for breaching the guidelines.

Donald Trump has said he’s not interested in getting back on Twitter (Ty Wright/Getty Images)

“Banning Trump from Twitter didn’t end Trump’s voice, it will amplify it among the right and this is why it’s morally wrong and flat out stupid,” Musk said at the Financial Times’ Future of the Car conference in May.

For his part, Mr Trump has said he wouldn’t return to Twitter even if he was allowed back on.

“I was disappointed by the way I was treated by Twitter. I won’t be going back on Twitter,” he told CNBC in April.

Under Twitter’s previous guidelines, it prohibited threats and glorification of violence, targeted abuse and harassment, and hateful conduct based on race, ethnicity, religion and gender.

Mr Moser says the rules have not been consistently enforced. Letting the former president back on could work out favourably, but only if Twitter spells out exactly where it will draw the line.

“If you let them back on with a very clear and concise policy, then you can act from there on,” he says.

Others to have been permanently banned from the platform include far right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, Roger Stone (twice in 2017 and again after Mr Musk announced his purchase in 2022), Infowars hate monger Alex Jones, white supremacist David Duke, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The ‘everything app’

“Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” Musk tweeted in early October.

Everything apps are a way of life in Asia, and tech developers have been trying to emulate them in other parts of the world.

WeChat, which has more than one billion users according to some estimates, is considered the benchmark.

“You basically live on WeChat in China,” Mr Musk said during a Q and A session with Twitter employees in June.

Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2022

He told employees the move into encrypted messaging, ride hailing and payments was part of a strategy to increase Twitter’s users numbers from around 237 million to “at least a billion.”

The Motley Fool’s tech expert Jason Moser says he remains “highly sceptical” that Musk will be able to pull this off.

“We know that China has WeChat and that works for them. But in the western world, people don’t want all of that stuff under one roof,” he said. “On the consumer side, you’re putting all of our eggs in one basket. If Twitter goes down, you don’t have any way of getting my stuff done.”

He said Facebook had tried to turn itself into an everything app, but ended up spreading itself too thin: “I don’t think that’s what most people want out of Twitter.”

‘Mere pawns in a game played by billionaires’

The Washington Post recently revealed that Musk planned to axe 75 per cent of Twitter’s employees, reducing the San Francisco-headquartered company’s headcount from 7,500 to just 2,000.

In response, Twitter employees wrote to their new overlord in a letter obtained by Time of their concerns about his “negligent layoff threats”.

The plan would hurt Twitter’s ability to “serve the public conversation,” employees wrote.

Twitter employees have warned Musk that by slashing the workforce he will fundamentally harm the user experience (AFP/Getty)

“A threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation.”

The letter signed off by demanding respect and protection and not “to not be treated as mere pawns in a game played by billionaires.”

The threat will likely cause an “exodus of talent” from Twitter, Jason Moser says, and retaining the best and brightest employees and attracting new talent would be crucial to improving the platform.

Consolidation of power

Musk has added the social media platform to a burgeoning portfolio of assets under his control.

These include electronic car maker Tesla, spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX, satellite internet provider Starlink, brain-chip pioneer Neuralink and tunnel venture The Boring Company.

In recent months, Mr Musk has used his platform to personally attack US president Joe Biden, pledge allegiance to the Republican Party, make unsolicited suggestions on how to end the war in Ukraine, and suggest allowing China to take control of parts of Taiwan.

A recent Bloomberg report claimed that the Biden administration was weighing subjecting Mr Musk’s business ventures to national security reviews - a charge flatly denied by the White House.

Given his efforts at freelance diplomacy, ability to turn off internet access in conflict zones, and dictate the political conversation, concerns remain about having so much power, money and geopolitical influence concentrated in the hands of one person.

Elon Musk (Getty Images)

“When you have someone who is running so many things that are so geared toward the future, the consolidation of power is extremely dangerous,” Mr Moser says. “Elon is a fascinating personality, some people are just fully bought in on him and everything that he does, and don’t even question a thing. It is almost cult-like to an extent. I wish him all the best and man-oh-man his plate is full.”