What new can be expected from Elon Musk's Twitter
Big questions still remain about what direction the company will take under one of the world’s most eccentric and outspoken billionaires.
FollowAfter weeks of back and forth, Elon Musk’s roughly $44 billion takeover bid brings the billionaire Tesla CEO one step closer to owning the social media platform. The deal is expected to close sometime this year. But before that, shareholders still have to weigh in, as well as regulators in the US and in countries where Twitter does business, before the deal is completed.
But big questions still remain about what direction the company will take under one of the world’s most eccentric and outspoken billionaires. As its new owner, he will try to realize his vision for the social media platform by fixing what he considers to be its failures.
In making his “best and final offer” to buy Twitter earlier in April, Musk said he intended for it to reclaim its status as a “platform for free speech around the globe.” The offer came after he criticized Twitter’s censorship rules and the number of bots posting on the service.
Now that the deal has gone through, and Twitter is set to become private under Musk’s majority ownership, questions are being raised over what Twitter will look like, and what changes he plans to push through.
Musk’s biggest gripe with Twitter has been how the service moderates content, which he equates to stifling free speech. Twitter’s new owner has previously spoken out against the company outright banning users who break rules, and instead has suggested a “time out.” He has said that he would ban only content that is illegal, but he hasn’t ruled on whether he would prohibit racism, harassment, and a number of other objectionable subjects.
Twitter to get an “edit” button?
In early April, Musk polled his Twitter followers about whether they thought the platform should add an edit button that would let users fix typos in their posts and make other tweaks. The answer was a resounding yes, with 73.6% of respondents saying they wanted the feature.
During an onstage interview at the TED conference on April 14, Musk followed up on the poll by confirming his support for an edit button.
Musk has said that he is not buying Twitter for the money, but he has signalled that he will be adjusting the company’s revenue model to focus less on ads, potentially putting more of an emphasis on subscriptions.
Banned users to be back?
Musk’s issues with Twitter censorship largely revolve around the idea that the company unilaterally bans any user it deems to have seriously violated its rules, including former President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riots last year.
Whether Trump—or other banned users—would be allowed back to Twitter is still unclear, but it is definitely a possibility, and several Republicans and Trump family members have already begun celebrating the idea of the former president re-joining the platform.
Should Trump’s account be reactivated, it might also pave the way for other banned users to return, such as US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was banned in January after violating Twitter’s COVID-19 misinformation policy.
