Elon Musk Buys 9.2 Percent Of Twitter, Leading To Questions And Memes About The Platform's Future

April 4th, 2022 - 12:50 PM EDT by Aidan Walker

6 comments | Contact Newsroom

Elon Musk, represented by Big Bird, at a table with a number of humans at Twitter's next board meeting. A tweet by Musk about seizing "the memes of production."

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and one of the top 10 most-followed people on Twitter, has now purchased a 9.2 percent stake in the social media company and become its largest shareholder, according to recent financial disclosures.


Musk frequently uses the platform to publicize his other ventures (including his companies Tesla and SpaceX, as well as pet projects like his flamethrower), but also to share his favorite memes, his thoughts on current events and his musings about life in general.


Musk’s recent investment has been connected by some commentators to his posts last week about the social media platform, which included a poll to his followers asking whether they thought Twitter did enough to promote free speech.


Many users speculated what Musk might do now that he has acquired a substantial share of Twitter, and how he might change the way the platform functions. Some celebrated the possibility of Musk changing the way Twitter does content moderation and polices speech on the platform.


Others criticized the self-described “bizniz magnet” for his financial adventurism and anti-union activity at the helm of Tesla, expressing concern about the future of Twitter.


A consistent motif in the memery that emerged in response to Musk’s purchase this morning was what the vibe might be in Twitter’s boardroom when the newest shareholder enters.


Many online commentators also joked and theorized about what might now be possible on the platform, given the change in ownership.


At the moment, Twitter’s biggest shareholders are so-called “institutional investors” — that is, mutual funds or banks that buy shares in companies for others. This means that a lot of Twitter stock is held in retirement accounts or in mutual funds where it is packaged and then sold along with other stocks. Some Twitter stock is owned by employees and founders of the company (Jack Dorsey owns about 2 percent of Twitter). Given how much capital Musk has, it's plausible for him to buy out Twitter entirely. His actions made the stock price jump about 20 percent on Friday. But so far, there are no indications of what his plans might be.

As of the writing of this post, all that Musk has said publicly is this:



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QuasiMadman
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QuasiMadman

in reply to MCC1701

Well, to be honest – I actually think Twitter could out-toxic old Tumblr by a long shot.
Every part of Twitter is basically tailor-made to promote toxicity, from the character limit, to the lack of any downvote/dislike functionality to the clearly heavily rigged verification system.

As much as there's a grain of truth to the idea that some toxic people migrated to Twitter and made it worse, Twitter was clearly built from the ground up to be a cesspool.

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MCC1701
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MCC1701

Things like this I liken to rerolling a D20 when you roll a 2. You can't really predict what the outcome will be, but you have a 90% chance of it ending up better than where you started so might as well be optimistic. Musk could improve the site or drive it into the ground, and I see either as a win.

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