Elon Musk has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at Twitter over the last six months, and now he has thrown them the kitchen sink too. But he's done it. Elon Musk owns Twitter.
I honestly don't know which part of that lede felt the weirdest coming out of my mouth: the "Elon Musk owns Twitter" part, or the "this whole ordeal has literally lasted six months" part. But hey. He got what he wanted.
The most shocking part of all of this is this: I'm sitting here still pretty optimistic about how this could all play out for Twitter and Elon in the long run. I was open-minded about the acquisition's potential when it first got announced, and my opinion still hasn't significantly changed (even if this acquisition circus shaved at least ten years off my life).
First, the bad: I have to imagine Elon has almost entirely lost the locker room at Twitter. That doesn't mean he can't win the company back; he is unquestionably one of the most innovative thinkers in the world today, and that godlike credibility can get you a church fast. But there's no way anyone at Twitter got any significant work done in the last six months with this Fyre Festival happening in the background. Elon has a lot of work to do to win back trust with employees.
But while his stances on exactly how content will be moderated or what type of business model Twitter will adopt have shifted around a bit, there is one central thesis to his Twitter product strategy that has been constant throughout this entire process: the content needs to be better. He seems to be taking notes from the stupid simple, perfectly catered UI of TikTok so he can incorporate some of those principles into Twitter, and while I don't want Twitter to just become 240-character TikTok, I trust Elon's definition of what "good content" is, and more importantly, I trust his definition of what it's not. I think quality news coverage, civil debate about interesting topics, and quality memes all fall under his umbrella of "good content," and he'll try to make these the cornerstone of the platform. I would bet trolls, invasive ads, random inflammatory Twitter fights, and low-quality memes all fall under his umbrella of "bad content," and he'll try to clean these up. Maybe I'm projecting my own desires onto Elon's, but either way I think he's going to bring a good level of focus to the Twitter feed.
In Elon's sort "letter to Twitter advertisers" thread today, it was very promising to hear him say the words "Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape" because — guess what, Elon — almost everything you said up to this point made it seem like Twitter was going to become a free-for-all hellscape. Absolute free speech without any restrictions isn't good for any civil society, and I'm happy to hear Twitter will not resort to that despite indications that Elon might push it that direction. Now, how much we should all believe what he says at this point is a valid question given the everything about the last six months, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
And let's also not forget: Elon says in that Twitter thread that he wanted to buy Twitter to "help humanity, whom I love," and even if that sounds like billionaire BS, he has time and time again committed his life to trying to advance the human species in some crazy way, whether that was through electric vehicles or streamlined space travel or subterranean tunnels or computer implants for the brain. We shouldn't write him off when he says these "help humanity" phrases because everything about his resume indicates he genuinely likes trying to give clever solutions to complex problems plaguing mankind. He's an absolute catastrophe to watch in the process, but his commitment is clear.
So sure, Elon Musk just paid $54.20 per share for a stock that realistically should cost maybe $20 right now, and he's probably going to lose the high majority of Twitter's key employees, and he seems to have acquired Twitter with the same baseless, whimsical decision making that one might feel when choosing between French's or Heinz mustard at the grocery store. But this might not be a train wreck. Or it might be. But there's at least a bull case to be made, and I'm happy to pretend I believe it for at least the next few months.
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