Elon Musk bought Twitter against a lot of odds. Many of the hurdles that were in front of him were totally artificial. They were imaginary hurdles set up by the media.
One VC I know that was an early investor in Twitter didn’t want Musk to buy it because he didn’t think a singular person should own it. I think that it was a way of not saying that their politics didn’t align and they didn’t want someone like Musk to own it. Of course, when Twitter started, it had three co-founders who owned and built it.
In April, I wrote that Musk would win. He did.
People that set up artificial hurdles don’t understand or know people like Elon Musk. I know quite a few of them. It’s not a “business” example but look at HOF QB Steve Young talk about being benched. I don’t think he is acting. My guess is if you played checkers with Steve Young he would be pretty competitive.
When you are as competitive as Musk, you aren’t backing down. They have another motor that propels them and they also don’t have a well developed part of the brain that interprets fear. When you combine that competitive streak with his ability to see the world very differently you get a rare character that can do incredible things.
Over his lifespan, he has created billions and billions of shareholder value from companies that were nothing or just an idea when he started. If Twitter were a public company today, I’d buy the stock and hold it.
Much is being made of Musk firing key employees on the first day. What people don’t understand is people like Musk will have highly qualified people flocking to work with him. I’d do it myself.
These people won’t be right-wing ideologues. They are going to be highly competitive and capable people that want to build something huge.
Musk has mentioned that he admires WeChat. There are features in WeChat that could be built into Twitter to make it stickier and make it a more useful experience for a great number of people. Some aspects of WeChat work simply because of the idiosyncracies of China.
With the meltdown and loss of focus at Facebook, there are some open fields that Twitter can plow. Not only that but when you layer on cryptocurrency and what it can do, there are new fields to be planted.
Twitter started out by being a messaging service. The tech world was charmed by it at South by Southwest. It turned into an unbundling of the “status update” on Facebook. Then, Twitter totally disrupted breaking news. As it scaled, it became a platform that could inform and manipulate public opinion.
President Trump showed the true value of Twitter, similar to how FDR used radio in the 1930s. In the 1930s, newspapers were the primary way people received information, and newspapers were mainly run by people ideologically opposed to FDR. FDR went on the radio and spoke directly to people. Trump did the same with Twitter. The mainstream media, print, television, and voice, were and continue to be 100% against and biased against Republicans. Trump spoke over them and was able to do it in a succinct manner because of Twitter’s 140-character restriction. People heard and understood it.
There are billions and billions of dollars of untapped potential in the company. The current management team was both missing out on it and putting shackles on growth due to the way they administered it. They also wanted to socially engineer society which never works for a business. Analysts missed it because they don’t think out of the box.
When you look at competing platforms, none of them have the scope of Twitter. I am on Gab, Parler, Truth Social, Gettr and none are like Twitter. They become billboards and echo chambers. A lot of Twitter is just media people posting links to their various soapboxes but there are people on Twitter that put out really good information.
During Covid, you could follow data scientists that were looking at Covid data and have an online objective discussion. Of course, Twitter shut a lot of that down, some of it at the direction of the government. By the way, if that’s not Fascism, I don’t know what is.
Today, Twitter is free. Free as a bird.
Congratulations Elon. Pop some champagne on Champagne Day. As Winston Churchill supposedly said, “In Victory you deserve it, in Defeat you need it”.
The management of Twitter used it as a social bludgeon and filter to manipulate the public -- with information, misinformation, disinformation, and censorship.
It would not be unfair to say Donald J Trump rode Twitter to victory and governed using it. He made Twitter a powerful political engine and they in turn made him President.
One of the immediate beneficiaries of the Musk regime may be that same Donald J Trump, who now banned may come again to Tweet and ride that pony to the winners' circle yet again.
Musk is focused on the business as a business not as a means to control public opinion and he will "monkey see, monkey do" his way to an even fatter bank acc't.
It is important to remember the US is big enough for all of us and that the pendulum never stops moving.
Bravo, well played and hang on!
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
I don’t trust him but I’ll take him for now. This is interesting: https://2ndsmartestguyintheworld.substack.com/p/elon-musk-officially-takes-over-twitter/comments