Why Elon Musk just spent $4b buying a big chunk of Twitter

His Twitter rants and raves have been wide-ranging and unfettered. He once tweeted, then deleted, a meme comparing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Hitler. He’s tweeted transphobic memes. He’s slagged a British cave explorer as a “pedo guy.” That’s a lot of free speech, and Twitter hasn’t done a lot to curtail it.

One explanation for Musk’s sensitivity might be found in his libertarian leanings. Belated efforts by social media platforms to constrain some of the most virulent forms of political propaganda have raised the hackles of that crowd (along with far-rightists and Trumpistas). Now Musk has at least fired a shot across Twitter’s bow by purchasing 9.2 per cent of its stock — which is also much less expensive than doing the same to Facebook (a 9.2 per cent stake in Meta would have cost him about $US58 billion).

Does Musk want to take over Twitter? I don’t think so. The company’s financials aren’t great, and running social media companies is hard. The car crash that is former President Donald Trump’s social media experiment, Truth Social, is a cautionary tale for Musk. Does Musk want to name some people to Twitter’s board of directors? Maybe. That would allow him to have some say over its affairs without spending too much time or money.

That’s worrisome, because it’s not ideal to have a free speech absolutist who isn’t absolutely in favour of free speech at the helm of — or even close to — a media company. Musk has already received a nice pop on his Twitter stake. The shares jumped 26 per cent on Monday after his investment was disclosed in a regulatory filing. He’ll stick around longer, of course, and speculation that Twitter may be in play will further inflate his holdings.

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But Musk probably isn’t in this for the money. He’s in it to make a point. And he’s in it to scare Twitter’s management. Somebody who has complained that his free speech is being “chilled” should, perhaps, be sensitive to those nuances. But that would assume that Musk is more of a philosopher than a bully.

Bloomberg

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