You must have seen the news on different channels and on social media that the richest person on earth Elon Musk is buying Twitter.
Why Elon Musk is buying this company? And what are those changes he’s planning to bring on Twitter after buying it?
On April 4, 2022, it was reported that Elon Musk had bought a 9.2% stake in Twitter the total value of the company’s shares purchased was approximately 2.9 billion, and after buying 9.2% of the shares, Elon Musk became the largest shareholder in the company at the time.
When the news came, the value of the company’s shares jumped 22% on the stock exchange, this was Elon Musk’s passive stake in the company. He was, of course, the largest shareholder in the company but he was not in favor of taking part in the company’s decisions.
Now let’s know the background of why he bought these shares and what he wanted to do?
A few days before the purchase of the shares, Elon Musk created a pool on his Twitter account in which he wrote that “freedom of expression is essential for a functioning democracy” he then asked Twitter users: do you think Twitter adheres to this principle? Users had to answer yes or no, to create more questions in the minds of the followers he also told the voters in reply to the same tweet to vote carefully as this tweet is essential.
Well, more than two million people participated in this poll, and surprisingly, 70% of people thought that Twitter did not adhere to the principle of freedom of expression. He tweeted this on 25 March, in this tweet, he didn’t tell that he is buying Twitter, so users began to speculate that Elon Musk is launching a social media platform like Twitter or he wants to acquire Twitter. After this, in a reply to another tweet, he also hinted that he might bring a new Twitter-style platform.
On April 5, Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced that he had joined Twitter’s Board of Directors, but if he had become a director Elon would not have been able to buy more than 14.9% of the company’s shares under the agreement, Elon might have another plan in his mind maybe that’s why he decided not to join the board of directors, this was also later announced by the CEO of Twitter.
In a regulatory filing on 14 April, it was revealed that Elon want to buy all shares of Twitter, before this he wrote a letter to Twitter’s Chairman, and in that letter, he offered to buy this platform for 43 billion dollars at 54.20 per share, he further wrote that freedom of expression is a social necessity of a functioning democracy and Twitter doesn’t seem to fulfill this social responsibility, so it is required to shift the company from public to private, he further wrote that if his offer is rejected, then he will reconsider his position as a shareholder.
It is now understood that he did not become part of the board of directors of the company because if he had done so, he would not have been able to buy more than 14.9% of the shares and now after making the offer he made it clear that he wants to influence the decision-making of the company and also wants full control of the company as it is easy to get some approval in a private company as compared to a public company.
Because the total number of shareholders a less following the offer, the company now had no choice but to accept the offer of a major shareholder, then all of Twitter’s proprietary shares were eventually sold to Elon Musk for about 44 billion.
In an interview to TED talk, Elon told about the changes he wants in Twitter, First, he told that In his view, Twitter does not adhere to the principle of freedom of expression at all, so he wants Twitter to be a platform where it is freedom of expression, but there is a problem in knowing what is freedom of expression and what not the same thing is understood differently in different countries and it has different laws.
Will Twitter’s algorithm be able to solve this problem or not?
Elon Musk also wants to add a tweet edit option to Twitter In this regard, he also created a poll on Twitter in which he asked users if they want an edit button on Twitter, according to 74% of the approximately 4.4 million users participating in the poll wanted a tweet edit feature.
But the problem here is that suppose a Twitter user tweets “Long live America!” and it is retweeted by a number of people, but Later the Twitter user suddenly changes his mind and after editing the tweet, he writes, ” America’’s Friend Is Traitor” and this change is represented in all retweets and of course, all of these users retweeted because of “long live America” and what would happen with that? Telling about it Elon musk stated that the edit feature will be time-sensitive and this change would not affect retweets
Another Change Elon wants to remove is a lifetime ban from Twitter, you must have heard that Twitter permanently banned Donald Trump in 2021, Elon believes that a complete ban should not be imposed on any Twitter user under any circumstances but this ban should be temporary.
There is a lot of talk of Bot Armies on social media and especially in Asian Countries like Pakistan and Srilanka India today, which is maintaining a record-breaking trend on Twitter of ‘Regime Change In Pakistan and Srilanka ” more specifically in Pakistan, about which political opponents say it is being run with the help of bot armies. (Bot is one such automated software program that has the ability to perform a task over and over again, without human instruction and he does it much faster than a human being).
According to Elon, eliminating bot armies and schemes is also one of his priorities, Elon Musk also believes that Twitter promotes certain people or topics and deliberately less promotes some topics and people, Elon Musk is outraged by this and wants a change, he also says that the coding structure of Twitter needs to be changed and Twitter code should be open source so anyone can offer solutions after analyzing it and finding flaws in it.
Another change that Musk wants is that any user who pays Twitter for specific services should also get an Authentication Mark with additional features, this will discourage fake accounts
According to Elon, the payment can also be in cryptocurrency and it should be according to the currency of different countries and the affordability of consumers, Elon also wants to bring more transparency to Twitter’s Content Moderation Practices.
According to Elon Musk, he does not see the purchase of Twitter as a business deal at all, rather he wants to create a social platform on which there is freedom of expression and it should be trusted by the people and he should protect the interests of the people.
Twitter has been acquired by Elon Musk It remains to be seen whether Elon Musk will be able to make these changes in Twitter that he wants