and we kick it off, of course, with mainstream outlets parroting the claim that Musk's concern here is "free speech," and not, say, his well-documented interest in crushing people who point out his products are half-baked and his companies' labor practices are abysmal pic.twitter.com/PLJm17iJTz
— Karl Bode (@KarlBode) April 4, 2022
Musk gets himself crosswise the SEC just tweeting, never mind attempting to influence the whole platform, but when you’ve got that much money I guess you have to keep shoveling it out of the yacht just to stay afloat. As a publicity stunt — EM’s main business form, AFAICT — it’s already accomplished its presumed goal, making The Richest Man both richer and more notorious in a single day. Per Reuters Opinion:
Unlike Twitter (TWTR.N), Edgar isn’t a household name. But occasionally the latter – the Securities and Exchange Commission’s public filing database – can be a more powerful platform. Tesla (TSLA.O) boss Elon Musk disclosed in a filing on Monday that he has acquired a 9.2% stake in Twitter (TWTR.N). That sent the company’s shares up more than 20%, adding $7 billion-plus to its market capitalization. It’s the ultimate attention-grabbing post.
As a measure of engagement, it’s hard to think of many posts on Twitter’s own platform that do better. One rare example might be Musk’s 2018 tweets that he was preparing to take Tesla private. Those posts sent the electric-car maker’s shares soaring. The SEC was unamused, forcing Musk to agree to let Tesla lawyers screen his posts.
Both the regulator and Twitter have come in for Musk’s ire. Musk has claimed the SEC is unfairly persecuting him. And he has tweeted about possibly creating an alternative to Twitter. Attacking how platform owners police content and threatening to move to a breakaway venue is a hallowed tradition – perhaps especially among popular posters like Musk, who has 80 million followers. He has elevated the practice by spending billions of dollars on Twitter shares…
Twitter is used to being entangled with critics. Silver Lake’s Egon Durban sits on its board after Twitter signed an agreement with the private equity firm and activist Elliott Management. Musk may stick around, tweeting as he goes along. When it comes to airing his opinions about Twitter itself, though, the SEC’s Edgar platform may have an edge.
Elon Musk Is Now Twitter’s Largest Shareholder; And That’s Probably Not A Good Thing https://t.co/E39QLuox9l
— techdirt (@techdirt) April 4, 2022
Elon Musk appears to have a childlike understanding of free speech, especially with regards to how content moderation and free speech work together. But after running a silly poll a few weeks ago, many people assumed that the reason Musk was agitating to see if people felt that Twitter “supported” free speech, was that he might try to buy the company. It turns out, he was already in the process of trying to do so. On Monday it was announced that Musk has accumulated nearly 10% of Twitter’s shares, via some pocket change, making him the single largest shareholder in the company…
It’s unclear, in the short term, what that will mean for the company. It’s not clear, for example, that Musk will get a board seat or become a particularly active board member, but given his agitating, and the way he’s handled some of his other companies, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if he does end up becoming quite active…
Again, I think Musk deserves praise for driving some innovations forward, and having a unique vision on how to execute on big, challenging scientific problems — like sending rockets into space and building electric cars, among other things. But managing speech is not a scientific or engineering problem. It’s a human challenge. And Musk does not exactly have the greatest of track records in showing empathy, or, frankly, common decency.
When the initial rumors were that Musk might start a competing social network, I was at least intrigued to see how that might compete with something like Twitter. But I do wonder how much his naïve take on speech might do serious harm to Twitter…
Musk buying nearly 10% of Twitter is the rare realpolitik move for a guy who likes to style himself a "memelord."
This platform, and the public imagination more broadly, is as central to his success as anything to do with the engineering of EVs or rockets. Much more, actually.
— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) April 4, 2022
From a long, thoughtful thread:
Musk buying nearly 10% of Twitter is the rare realpolitik move for a guy who likes to style himself a “memelord.”
This platform, and the public imagination more broadly, is as central to his success as anything to do with the engineering of EVs or rockets. Much more, actually.
Investing in the engine of growth for his personal empire shows that Musk doesn’t just want to be the world’s greatest showman (or “personal brand,” as well call them now). He wants to own the biggest venue, so now anyone replicating his playbook has to go through him.
Musk’s real industrial work, the things he has most fundamentally transformed in his diverse career, exists in the minds and imaginations of the public. His magic trick is “memeing” perception into reality, and Twitter is critical infrastructure for that.
But like a lot of his boldest plays, Musk seems to be firing from the hip on this. He’s already framed his engagement with Twitter around the issue of “free speech,” which is a world-historical level meme, but one that makes this adventure fraught with challenges.
I’m skeptical that he feels the need to tilt the Twitter playing field even further to the benefit of his posting, or the fortunes of his companies. He’s already gotten away with posts others have been banned for, and his investors are infamously active evangelists on here.
That said, Musk’s actions make it incredibly clear that he does NOT believe in free speech and that he is incredibly sensitive to media coverage of himself and his companies. But framing his Twitter investment as a free speech move then pursuing obvious self-interest won’t play.
What buying into Twitter as a free speech crusader does do is entrench him further as an icon of the post-Trump American right, for whom the power of Silicon Valley over online speech is a major issue. Long straddling the culture war divide, Musk is now seriously taking sides…
There will be plenty of time to say more about all this, but for now I’ll conclude with a message to my friends in the media: please start taking Musk’s history of “stealth PR” more seriously. It’s a tough subject to research, but there’s much there the public needs to know now.
Twitter options trades ahead of Musk disclosure raise analysts' eyebrows https://t.co/Tn1C0sbjTa pic.twitter.com/iAwL1lCwMM
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 5, 2022
Twitter closed up 27% after Elon Musk took a 9.2% stake in the company https://t.co/uJnUIspoa5 pic.twitter.com/kZ3fnEFabk
— Bloomberg (@business) April 4, 2022
Re: Elon Musk becoming the biggest Twitter shareholder pic.twitter.com/X6lF1mrChY
— Edward Ongweso Jr (@bigblackjacobin) April 4, 2022
War for Ukraine Update 41: The Focus Shifts To the East
NotMax
Boys and their toys.
He’ll tire of it and flit to something else techie he can co-opt soon enough.
Betty Cracker
I’m grateful he was born in South Africa. Otherwise the insufferable prick would almost certainly be our president someday.
gene108
Kind of nuts to me that $2.89 billion he spent buying 9.2% of Twitter doesn’t set him back financially at all.
It’s disposable income for him.
mrmoshpotato
@gene108:
It’s insane.
OzarkHillbilly
@gene108: Couch change.
Baud
People should start thinking of alternatives if Twitter does get coopted by Musk or another right wing figure.
John Revolta
@mrmoshpotato: Robin Colcord: “In the time it takes for me to say ‘forty thousand dollars’, I make forty thousand dollars.”
Woody: “Wow……….forty thousand dollars!”
RC: “Yes, it also works if you say it.”
wetzel
Musk just needs another Skinner Box to put us in. Maybe he’ll give Twitter autopilot over us.
sab
@Baud: We are all doing fine without MySpace.
MisterDancer
Twitter is in a fairly unique place, Social Media wise. I know there’s a ton of people here who love to slam Twitter, and yes, there’s a lot of toxicity and bad-faith there.
Yet Twitter openly hosts a ton of useful content. It’s “short posts” approach, plus (relatively) lightweight interface, makes it a lot more accessible to many people than pretty much any other social media platform. There’s a reason the so-called Arab Spring was primarily a Twitter phenom, for one key example.
As a result of that and other factors — Twitter has been around a long time in social-media terms, for example — I’m honestly not certain what series of factors could get a mass migration off Twitter to occur. It’s already a bad situation, and a lot of people are just…making do, right now.
stinger
Grade A Prime!
Ruckus
Twitter does have a certain appeal. It quite likely has just lost that.
This is a first for me, I’m actually glad that I got censured on Twit and don’t/can’t comment any longer without doing penance. And it’s because of one person.
I doubt that I am alone in disliking Elon (I think I can call him by his first name, he seems to want everyone in the world to like him, or at least know him, or possibly just bow down at his feet.) He has done a lot for the future of personal transportation, if not for the concept of actual humanity.
Betsy
@Ruckus: No, he hasn’t. He has an idiotic concept for building car lanes underground, at 10,000% of the cost of building them above ground. Hot take: adding car lanes doesn’t reduce congestion above or below ground.
There are a lot of parodies and disproof of concept videos out there. I’ll try to find a nice one and share it here.
Betsy
@Ruckus: @Betsy: Here we go:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R6RaoGHZC3A&feature=youtu.be
Ruckus
@Betsy:
Yes his underground car lane bullshit was exactly that.
And no he’s not the first person to build an electric car, not even close. But while I’m not a fan of his and while the build quality of his car can and does have some questions that he doesn’t seem to be concerned with, the concept of an electric car and it’s usefulness as modern transportation has been forwarded by Elon – Tesla significantly. Oil will always be with us, even if it becomes fully synthetic, the properties that it gives machines is unquestionable, it makes machinery possible. But as a motive force it has serious drawbacks that can now be replaced with something far better – a thing that could not be said over 100 yrs ago.
I dislike his car but the electrical part of it is not why. His underground car lane idea is asinine, we have underground electric cars that work far better, they are called subways. And I ride on one here in LA all the time, as well as full electric above ground trains. Which work far better than the diesel/electric train that is closer to me.
You can knock Elon for his electric highway all you want – he deserves that, but his electric car has brought the concept that we can get rid of burning oil (and coal) to the forefront and do so without losing the ability of individual transportation. His idea is not in any way new, or only his, but Tesla has sparked a global change in transportation that is at the very least a first step in a journey that is absolutely necessary for humanity.
He may be an ass but he is a somewhat positive ass. And that is an improvement in asshole that has been sorely missing.
Brant
An electric highway is how you get rid of the battery problem?