Will Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter mean a return to the Donald Trump era of tweets?

It's been an interesting journey

Forty-four billion dollars. That’s how much Elon Musk paid to take over Twitter. After rejecting a board seat, Musk has struck a deal with the social media platform and intends to make a series of changes, from relaxing its content restrictions to eradicating fake accounts. Undoubtedly, the billionaire is one of the most popular Twitter users—his tweets about Doge set the crypto space into a frenzy, shooting up cryptocurrency’s prices.

Earlier this month, Musk announced that he had acquired a 9.2 per cent stake in Twitter. The purchase came days after Musk said he was “giving serious thought” to building a new social media platform. For Twitter, the Tesla founder’s purchase comes at a time when its annual revenue as of December 2021 stood at $5 billion, and has targeted achieving $7.5 billion in revenue by 2023.

In the recent years, Twitter has made an astounding comeback with a 20 per cent growth during the Covid-19 pandemic. Share prices for Twitter on Monday closed more than 5 per cent higher after the deal was announced—the platform sold itself to Musk for $54.20 a share—a 38 per cent premium over the company’s share price.

Amid growing criticism from regulators and politicians about the platform’s content, Musk also plans on taking the company private. “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” he said in a statement. Donald Trump—who has been famously banned from Twitter for inciting violence—especially last year's violence at the Capitol on January 6, welcomed Musk’s move.

Musk’s stake, worth nearly $3 billion, makes him the largest shareholder in the company, more than the 8.8 per cent stake held by the Vanguard Group, 8.4 per cent held by Morgan Stanley, and 2.2 per cent stake held by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. One of the richest persons in the world, the Tesla and Space X owner could give the microblogging platform more financial muscle to compete with other platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

Musk had previously tweeted polls, first asking followers if Twitter adhered to the principles of free speech and then asking if the site should introduce an 'edit' button. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal responded to this by urging people to vote carefully, as the consequences could be crucial.

The billionaire rejected a seat at the board, opting to be a private owner which, in turn, gives him more power, including reversing Twitter’s ban on Trump. While sources say that the former president of the United States of America is not going to return to the platform, there are rumours suggesting he might not be able to resist. To make matters more grim, The Washington Post reported that QAnon followers—a bunch of far-right extremists—theorised that Twitter will merge with Trump’s Truth Network. However (and thankfully), there is nothing to confirm this narrative yet.

It’s almost as if Musk wants an outlet for “free speech” owing to the simmering rivalry he’s had over the years with Amazon head honcho, Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post. The heated competition between Musk and Bezos has been in the making over the past 15 years, primarily over their space ambitions. Musk runs SpaceX, while Bezos launched Blue Origin. Moreover, Musk has taken public issue with Bezos on several occasions, calling him a "copycat" over some of Amazon's business ventures, saying that Amazon is a monopoly that should be broken up, while simultaneously making several digs about Bezos' age. Bezos, on the other hand, has made veiled critiques of Musk's main goal, which is to send humans to Mars.

Musk has been pretty outspoken about the feud. In 2013, SpaceX tried to get exclusive use of a NASA launchpad. Blue Origin (along with SpaceX rival United Launch Alliance) filed a formal protest with the government to prevent SpaceX from using the pad. Bezos proposed converting it "into a commercial spaceport available to all launch companies." Musk calling the move a "phony blocking tactic," fired his volley, “[Blue Origin] and has not yet succeeded in creating a reliable suborbital spacecraft, despite spending over 10 years in development,” Musk had told Space News at the time. "If they do somehow show up in the next five years with a vehicle qualified to NASA's human rating standards that can dock with the Space Station, which is what Pad 39A is meant to do, we will gladly accommodate their needs. Frankly, I think we are more likely to discover unicorns dancing in the flame duct,” he had added.

While there has been no official statement made about a change in leadership, NDTV reports that Agrawal would receive a pay out of approximately $42 million if he was let go within 12 months of change in control of the social media company. This includes his base salary and accelerated vesting of all equity awards. For now, it's wait and watch.

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