Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, bought a 9% stake in Twitter on Monday, taking the media and technology worlds by storm. As he has become the largest shareholder in the company, Musk now serves on its board of directors, NBC News reported.
“Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!” Musk tweeted on Tuesday.
Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2022
It will be noteworthy if Musk takes any decisive actions as a key Twitter investor, and he is even asking the platform’s users for guidance. He posted a Twitter poll asking if there should be an edit button, which is something that users have been asking about for years. Naturally, 73.5% of the 4,028,123 votes were in favor.
Do you want an edit button?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2022
Free speech advocates have called for Musk to clarify and roll back specific regulations that result in accounts getting suspended over what might be considered offensive, dangerous, or hateful.
Substack is hiring!
If you’re a Twitter employee who’s considering resigning because you’re worried about Elon Musk pushing for less regulated speech… please do not come work here.
— Lulu Cheng Meservey (@lulumeservey) April 5, 2022
Many conservatives are unsurprisingly calling for Musk to reinstate former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, which was suspended shortly after Jan. 6, 2021. Realistically, though, it would likely be a lengthy and controversial process to make that happen.
It’s not hard to understand the argument that it’s unfair to ban Trump but host accounts for the Kremlin, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Chinese government propaganda. One does not have to enjoy the former president’s tweets to understand that Twitter’s standards are applied unequally.
While Musk is undoubtedly a tech guy, he doesn’t exhibit the same level of political aloofness as the rest of the industry. Silicon Valley has become an ideological bubble, and its upper-middle-class progressive politics are rarely challenged by other points of view. Big Tech’s Overton window continues to shift to the left due to the unfortunate degree of groupthink.
The billionaire has recently become a voice against “wokeness,” especially in a December interview with conservative satire site The Babylon Bee. He likely does not hold the same conservative values as heartland America, but he seems to be aligned with pragmatic liberals such as Bari Weiss and Glenn Greenwald.
Conservatives have a bad habit of making anybody who is anti-left a martyr, so everyone should be cautiously optimistic about Musk’s latest business venture. Regardless, his decision to purchase a significant amount of Twitter shares is better than starting an alternative social media platform. Musk could probably have pulled that off successfully, too, except the number of new platforms is becoming overwhelming and almost laughable.
Related: Another One? Elon Musk Teases Launching a New Social Media Platform
GETTR did not catch on, and Truth Social still doesn’t even have Trump on it. Both of these platforms only cater to a populist conservative audience, which makes it difficult for them to grow. Musk is one of the few people with the financial resources to make changes at the source of the problem, and he now has a responsibility to take action.