Elon Musk Trying To Buy Twitter Isn’t About Protecting Free Speech
It’s about something much more insidious
Cash deal for a social media company
Elon Musk has made headlines lately by saying that he wants to purchase the company, Twitter. He already owns 9% of the company and wants to own the rest of the stocks. He has put an offer in at $54.20 a share, in cash. This deal would be in the ballpark of about $43 billion.
Why would the world’s richest man, valued at around $260 billion want to purchase one of the largest social media companies? Is he actually trying to be a good citizen and buy the company against what he thinks are Twitter’s violations against its users?
Free speech claims
I don’t like the former President but they did completely ban him from the platform. They’ve also banned other people from the platform as well for spreading misinformation and for posting unverified claims. It seems that he’d want to try and take an unmediated approach to a social media company.
He’s even said himself in the past that he wants to start his own social media company. What would be the end in a man who’s mainly known for his engineering study and sometimes wacky ideas like underground tunnels and Starlink internet service?
Controlling the media
It seems that he wants to get his hands on everything. His real motivation here, contrary to what he’s claiming, isn’t to promote free speech but to contort it to his own end. He wants to be able to control the narrative.
This is why I felt Jeff Bezos, another fellow billionaire, went into media and bought the Washington Post in August 2013. Those who control the narrative control the way people think and in turn control every aspect of people’s lives. Twitter, at this point, is only valued at about $13 billion as a company.
Overpaying for control
He would definitely be overpaying for the platform. His own main company, Tesla, is valued at approximately $1 trillion. Honestly, at this point, he’s either the smartest man out there or a complete fool. Why would you overpay for a dying platform when everybody suspects you’ll be using the platform to manipulate your own agenda anyway? I suspect few people actually believe that Elon Musk is being valiant or charitable here. The man, at times, has shown us very sociopathic tendencies.
Sociopathic tendencies and real motivation
He’s gone on Joe Rogan’s podcast and pretended to be hip and cool by trying to smoke a joint. He made an appearance on Saturday Night Live and attempted to claim that he’s on the autism spectrum. I’m not saying that he shouldn’t be believed but I mean why is he even bringing it up at this point?
Does his revelation even help the communities he was trying to bring awareness and acceptance to? Is he donating to local and national charities that help support the autistic communities? He’s shown that he can definitely help. Not others, but himself.
Anyone who can become that rich has definitely already proven that they care about no one else but themselves. If their companies, inventions, and innovations (I’m using that word very loosely for this man) are actually intended to help people, then he’d certainly have a different trajectory and aim here. We should all be very scared and worried at this point about this man.
Be very worried, if he succeeds
If he does succeed in buying the platform, he would have access to the data of the 217 million users. This could help him only become richer. Take Mark Zuckerberg, another fellow billionaire, and just look objectively at what he’s done over the years with user data on Facebook/Meta. Buying social media buys control, controls free speech, and gives these companies and their executives endless access to user data.
Elon Musk has proven to be a very savvy businessman, almost like a snake-oil salesman. Giving him control over any major social media platform should sound the alarms for anyone actually paying attention. We should all hope that he doesn’t succeed in buying the company. We might all start actually buying into some of his crazy ideas and buying the next gimmick he sells us and not even know until it’s too late that we’ve been had.
