Elon Musk simply spent a whopping $44 billion on Twitter, a social media platform with practically 400 million customers across the globe.
So, what are his day one priorities? Apparently, they encompass trying right into a grievance from an nameless right-wing troll about how they misplaced 1,200 followers the opposite day.
Late Thursday evening, the deal was finally sealed between Elon Musk and Twitter, ending a months-long saga which resulted in Musk overpaying to accumulate the platform and taking it non-public.
Musk took to Twitter final evening to announce the change in possession with a tweet.
“the chicken is freed,” posted Musk.
Elon Musk, buyer help consultant
His very subsequent tweet — which was his very first reply to a different consumer as Twitter’s new proprietor — was a response to the nameless right-wing Twitter consumer “@catturd2,” a consumer who was ceaselessly retweeted by former president Donald Trump earlier than Trump was suspended from the platform in January 2021.
The tweet that Musk responded to was a grievance from @catturd2 saying he was “nonetheless Shadowbanned, ghostbanned, searchbanned, and Twitter eliminated 1200 followers at the moment – as standard.”
It is price noting that @catturd2 has greater than 850,000 followers and that his tweet had tens of 1000’s of likes earlier than Musk even replied to it. These are large numbers that may put him within the higher echelon of Twitter customers, making his claims of being persecuted by Twitter fairly nonsensical.
Nonetheless, Musk personally reached out.
“I will likely be digging in additional at the moment,” replied Musk.
After Musk’s reply, @catturd2 rapidly responded that he gained thousands of followers and chalked it as much as Twitter’s new proprietor for rapidly making modifications that enabled this. Logically minded people would word that @catturd2 doubtless gained followers as a result of Musk replied to him and never as a result of sweeping modifications had been made to the Twitter algorithm inside the 20-minute time span during which this all occurred.
Is Musk going to personally reply to each influential right-wing determine as a way to assist satiate their full misunderstanding of how social media works? Time will inform.
Musk did say that one among his objectives at Twitter could be to tackle bots and pretend accounts. However the query stays: How is he going to take away these accounts with out angering the @catturd2s of Twitter? Everybody on the platform (and throughout the political divide) has a minimum of a number of faux followers. And the bigger the account, the extra faux followers they’ve. If Musk follows by way of on his plan, accounts like @catturd2 will definitely blame him for the elimination of a whole lot of 1000’s of fake followers. How will Musk reply to assaults from right-wing accounts then?
Elon Musk wants to resolve the Elon Musk drawback
However Musk really has a extra urgent drawback to take care of: Himself.
Early Thursday morning, Elon Musk tweeted an announcement out to Twitter advertisers who expressed concern over persevering with their advertising on Musk’s model of Twitter. He tried to calm their fears by claiming he wouldn’t let Twitter turn into a “free-for-all hellscape” and stated his plans are a response to fears social media would splinter into partisan echo chambers.
Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, so now its users want to leave or tank its value
However, Elon Musk is clearly in a right-wing echo chamber himself. Musk’s personal texts, which had been launched as a part of the unique Twitter trial proceedings, present him texting with a lot of right-wing partisans, a few of whom even really helpful he rent present Republican congressional candidates.
One other fascinating dialog gleaned from Musk’s court-submitted texts has to do with one contact who’s allegedly his ex-wife Talulah Riley. The 2 had been conversing in regards to the Twitter suspension of a conservative (self-proclaimed) parody web site that misgenders trans folks, an account that was in violation of Twitter’s guidelines on the time.
“Please do one thing to combat woke-ism,” Musk’s contact begged him.
His personal private right-wing echo chamber
Musk is clearly surrounded by right-wingers.
And his day one try to research a right-wing consumer’s follower depend wasn’t a one-off, both. Quickly after replying to @catturd2, his very subsequent reply was to a Twitter account belonging to a right-wing group known as Canada Proud that was looking for his assist with censorship issues in Canada.
Regardless of what conservative activists assume, Big Tech is not a left-wing utopia. It’s, in truth, absolutely owned by the precise. These are dyed-in-the-wool capitalists. Twitter’s board actually sued Musk to pressure him to respect his authorized settlement to purchase the corporate as a result of they valued their very own private payday over the livelihoods of their employees. (Bear in mind: Musk has plans for big layoffs.) Twitter’s executives get to stroll away with multimillion-dollar payouts whereas the staff that Musk plans to fireside should fear about their subsequent paycheck.
And it isn’t simply on the enterprise finish of issues both. Social media firms very particularly have a historical past of kowtowing to right-wing customers. Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, feared angering right-wing influencers a lot that they got special treatment to spread misinformation on Fb.
It’s notable how Musk does not thoughts making it blatantly apparent the place his true intentions lie.
Musk could also be accountable for Twitter now, however he is nonetheless beholden to a robust group: Advertisers. In any case, he does must pay again his loans and please his traders one way or the other. Maybe it could be good for him to take his personal recommendation and exit his echo chamber.
Or, possibly he can simply proceed his new career as a private social media concierge service for right-wing social media addicts. Twitter can most likely nonetheless scrounge up the identical advertisers that conservative media attracts: MyPillow and the gold coin salesmen. Certainly that income will make the $44 billion buy price it.
