Twitter’s board of directors accepted Elon Musk’s offer to buy the social network for $54.2 a share in a $44 billion deal. One consequence will be that Twitter will be a private company again leaving the Wall Street Stock Exchange. In early April, Musk bought 9.2% of the social network but decided not to join its board. Now, his stated goal is to change Twitter to ensure free speech, which he sees as a bedrock of democracy.
The Twitter acquisition represents the culmination of hectic weeks for Elon Musk, who has long been the focus of criticism and general controversy for various tweets. Among them, there are those concerning cryptocurrencies because they’re considered instrumental to cause a rise especially of Dogecoin to enable Musk to earn some more money.
Twitter has been at the center of discussion about its policy for years concerning what can and cannot be posted in tweets. The criteria used to block users have often been criticized, a vast problem, as it covers topics ranging from politics to cyberbullying.
Extending support for cryptocurrencies and free speech are sure to be two important themes in Twitter’s new management. Immediately after the news of the acquisition was published, Dogecoin rallied. Elon Musk also promised to defeat spam bots, and perhaps that’s the only topic on which there will be no new criticism and discussion.
Recently, a collaboration between Twitter and Stripe was announced to allow Twitter users to be paid also via cryptocurrencies using the Stripe Connect service. From this point of view, we can expect that Elon Musk will be happy with any improvement.
The problem of free speech is certainly the most complex. There have been accusations of penalizing certain behaviors such as the expression of certain political opinions but not other behaviors that result in cyberbullying. Elon Musk said he hopes even his fiercest critics will stay on Twitter because that is what free speech means. However, there are fears of the return of extremist fringes who use free speech to spread intolerance.
On the more technical side, rumors speak of changes such as limitations of ads on Twitter and open source algorithms. Elon Musk also mentioned new features. There will likely still be a lot of discussion about Twitter in the future, even more, because Musk’s critics will be quick to stress any possible issues. The changes that will come could bury Twitter or revive it.
