What Musk at Twitter might mean for users
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Agencies Tesla CEO Elon Musk now has a 9% stake in Twitter and a seat on its corporate board of directors, raising questions about how the billionaire busi...
AgenciesTesla CEO Elon Musk now has a 9% stake in Twitter and a seat on its corporate board of directors, raising questions about how the billionaire business magnate could reshape the social media platform. He is now Twitterâs biggest shareholder and has the ear of top managers.Does Musk have a history with Twitter? Indeed he does. Muskâs 80.5 million Twitter followers make him one of the most popular figures on the platform, rivaling pop stars like Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga. But his prolific tweeting sometimes gets him into trouble when, for instance, he uses it to promote his business ventures, rally Tesla loyalists, question pandemic measures and pick fights with those with whom he disagrees.In one famous example, Musk apologized to a British cave explorer who alleged the Tesla CEO had branded him a pedophile by referring to him as âpedo guyâ in an angry â and subsequently deleted â tweet. The explorer filed a defamation suit, although a Los Angeles jury later cleared Musk.Heâs also been locked in a long-running dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over his Twitter activity. Musk and Tesla in 2018 agreed to pay $40 million in civil fines and for Musk to have his tweets approved by a corporate lawyer after he tweeted about having the money to take Tesla private at $420 per share â which didnât happen but caused Teslaâs stock price to jump. His lawyer has contended that the SEC is infringing on Muskâs free speech rights.What does Musk plan to do at Twitter?Musk has described himself as a âfree speech absolutistâ and has made clear that he doesnât think Twitter is living up to free speech principles â an opinion shared by followers of Donald Trump and several right-wing political figures whoâve had their accounts suspended for violating Twitter content rules.But whatâs really driving Muskâs Twitter involvement isnât clear. His preoccupations with the service include arguing to make Twitterâs algorithm viewable by the public, widening the availability of âverifiedâ Twitter accounts, and blasting a profile photo initiative involving non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.Musk has also called âcrypto spam bots,â which search tweets for cryptocurrency related keywords then pose as customer support to empty user crypto wallets, the âmost annoying problem on twitter.ââWe donât know what his goals are,â said Jennifer Grygiel, a Syracuse University communications professor and an expert on social media. âMaybe Elon Musk secretly wants to blow (Twitter) up ... maybe he wants to destroy it.âWhat can Musk actually do as a board member?Muskâs role as both a board member and Twitterâs largest shareholder certainly gives him an outsized voice in the companyâs future. Heâs been publicly praised this week by the CEO and other board members, a sign that Twitter leadership is likely to take his ideas seriously.But heâs still just one member of a 12-person board that Twitter says has âan important advisory and feedback roleâ but no responsibility over day-to-day operations and decisions. That means Musk wonât have the authority to add an âedit buttonâ or to restore Donald Trumpâs suspended account.âOur policy decisions are not determined by the board or shareholders, and we have no plans to reverse any policy decisions,â said Twitter spokesperson Adrian Zamora.What do shareholders think?Several Wall Street analysts said they were encouraged by Muskâs new role at Twitter. âThis is a guy that does push for change, that does, I think, refuse to have failure on his resume. A perfect guy you need on the board of directors for them,â said CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino. Thatâs true, Zino said, even if âwhat exactly his ideas are, who the heck knows.âOther investors arenât so sure. Meredith Benton, founder of the investment consulting firm Whistle Stop Capital, has been pushing for shareholders at both Twitter and Tesla to back stronger policies affecting workplace harassment and discrimination. She describes Muskâs new role as a concerning development for Twitter investors, especially given accusations by California regulators that Tesla has been discriminating against Black employees at its San Francisco Bay Area factory.âTwitterâs greatest current challenge is to navigate successfully through the societal implications of its platformâs use,â Benton said. âElon Musk with his air of reckless bravado presents a risk of undermining thoughtful and strategic management of these topics.âWhere is Twitter as a company?There has been executive turnover since co-founder Jack Dorseyâs departure in November left Twitter with a new CEO, Parag Agrawal, whose initial actions have involved reorganizing divisions. Wall Street analysts had approved of the choice of Agrawal as the new leader, but there have been no major changes to the platform yet. The company has long lagged behind its social media rivals and boasts far fewer users.The mere fact of linking Muskâs high-profile name to Twitter could get people to spend more time on on the platform and help it make more money, Zino said, calling Musk âthe most important individualâ at Twitter.Isnât Musk a pretty busy guy?You wouldnât know it from his prolific posts, but he does hold several big roles, including CEO and âTechnokingâ of electric car company Tesla and CEO of the rocket company SpaceX. He is also the founder of The Boring Company, an underground tunnel company, and Neuralink, which wants to plant computer chips in peopleâs brains.