As soon as he took over Twitter on Thursday night, after months of dispute, Elon Musk celebrated with a tweet. "The bird is free", alluding to the logo of the social network.
This Friday his party continued: Let the fun begin," the "Twitter in Chief" wrote on his account, while Twitter's listing was suspended on the New York Stock Exchange in the wake of the acquisition.
Musk entered the china shop like an elephant as soon as he completed the purchase of the platform for 44,000 million dollars, even before the deadline given until this Friday by the judge. He immediately terminated four top managers: CEO Parag Agrawal; chief financial officer Ned Segal; General Counsel Sean Edgett; and the legal director, Vijaya Gadde, who was appointed by former CEO and founder, Jack Dorsey, to control disinformation, and led to the expulsion of then US President Donald Trump.
This King Midas of modernity, who turns everything he touches into gold, be they electric cars (Tesla) or space rockets (Space X), now faces a huge challenge. Musk, who has taken sole control of the most relevant social network for political and social discourse, will have to meet his challenge of making this platform, marked by its low profitability, come back. The richest man in the world, with an estimated fortune of 212,000 million dollars, set the bar very high. He argued that the benefit of this network will be ten times higher than the 44,000 million that he will pay to own it.
One of its mechanisms is to reduce the workforce. For now, the layoffs of the four somewhat executives are going to cost him a figure of around 100 million dollars.
If somewhere there is concern about this purchase, it is verified in the company's own headquarters. Musk promised a pickle. His plan was to get rid of 75% of a payroll that has 7,500 employees. That he is serious became clear as soon as he started.
But his project stumbles over the distrust that he himself generates. Despite trying to calm them by saying that the network will not be "a hellscape free for all, where you can say anything without consequences", advertisers are concerned with the tycoon's plan to soften the moderation mechanisms. This represents a conflict of interest for advertising in these times when there is fear of an overabundance of misinformation.
As soon as the transfer of ownership was completed, bets arose about how long it will take for Trump to return to Twitter, at a time when he has further reinforced his coup attempt to perpetuate himself in power and the lies to calm his ego in defeat.
Various analysts stressed that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is one of those who celebrates this purchase. Progressive activists warned that this unilateral takeover is "dangerous for all of us." Groups such as Stop the Deal Coalition (group to stop the purchase) stressed that this can cause a domino effect and that other social platforms reject the security regulations. “It can do irreparable damage. Musk's Twitter project will further fill the pit of hate."
