Elon Musk is internationally renowned for his successful ventures in business; it is undeniable that Musk has some talent regarding the growth of his entrepreneurial ventures. It is up for debate if he continually buys his way into successful enterprises months before they take off; and repeatedly retains all the credit for embarrassingly little work, or if he is actually some sort of genius whose methods and contributions are generally unbeknownst to us. However, Musk has changed his approach in his Twitter buyout, instead attempting to claim single ownership of a platform that values honesty and the opinions of others. As Twitter is already extremely well established, his approach to the natural criticism of everyday news will be heavily anticipated as the CEO has often found himself at the centre of harsh criticism.
Throughout his decades of enterprise from PayPal (formally X.com), to Tesla, SpaceX and most recently Twitter, Musk’s ego has been further and dangerously inflated from these successes, despite harsh criticisms and multiple legal actions taken against him for various personal and corporate charges. Although some may see it as steps in growing his monopoly over the tech world, Musk’s almost colonial-esque attitude towards business causes us to question his true intentions. His general disregard for the immoral actions his businesses have taken (lithium mining for Tesla or the environmental impact of SpaceX) are highly questionable for someone who aims to make the world a cleaner and better place for future generations.
In April of 2022, Musk announced his plan to buy popular social media company Twitter for $44 billion ($54 a share), sparking major controversy online regarding the general privatisation of online forums, and the effect it may have on censorship and monetisation.
The previous decade has seen a huge trend of monetisation, (a way in which social media companies and users can earn extra income by running ads on their platform that often specifically cater to the user’s interests or engagement patterns) with most popular online platforms conflating their websites and apps with redundant, consumerist advertising.
This was an attempt to increase profits for those that sit at the top of the hierarchical tech chain. Due to the fact that social media itself is extremely new, the structures of companies and tracking of revenue hasn’t quite been cracked yet; because of this those who exist at the head of these operations can often bypass investors and employees due to the unexplored nature of the internet’s earning capacity. Furthermore, as social media and online enterprises are far more catered to youth, many businesses use Gen-Z naivety surrounding corporate culture to promote their earnings through snubbing their employees.
Concerns were mostly voiced in regard to the consequences of the richest man in the world obtaining sole power over a social media platform that so heavily valued free thought and opinion. Since its founding in 2006, Twitter has remained focused on allowing people to share their thoughts, opinions and experiences with followers in 280 characters or less (previously 140 until Nov 2017), therefore the company going private sparked significant concern about whether this would change following the buyout.
After months of agreements and contracts being signed, Musk pulled a huge U-turn on his plans and announced his decision to back out of the contractual agreement due to concerns over the spam bots that seemed to be all over the website. However, he was backing out of a deal unlawfully and entirely on his own terms, resulting in the threat of a huge lawsuit as a response to his poor decision-making. In October, he decided to go through with the deal, avoiding the legal charges and taking ownership of the app, informing all users that “the bird is freed”.
Along with various questionable announcements, the heavily criticised and possibly unlawful firing of c.7,500 workers, Musk informed his followers of his new concept ‘Twitter Blue’. A service where users can pay $8 a month to gain a blue verification mark and avoid ardent advertisements that break up any ‘regular’ user’s timeline.
Scoop: Elon Musk just sent an email to all staff outlining “Twitter 2.0″, writing it will”need to be extremely hardcore”. Long hours, high intensity.
People need to click “yes” to confirm being part of this by 5pm ET tomorrow, else they get 3 months severance. More details:
— Gergely Orosz (@GergelyOrosz) November 16, 2022
After the service’s launch a myriad of impersonation accounts took to the site to give theories of Musk’s incompetence empirical evidence. Impersonation accounts who paid for their verification varied from George Bush Jr. to Lebron James and Donald Trump – each account tweeting morally questionable, satirical content under the guise of various celebrities.
Aside from the initial confusion and general criticism of Musk, Twitter Blue hit an all time low when an account pretending to be the pharmaceutical company ‘Eli, Lilly and Co.’ tweeted “We are excited to announce insulin is free now” reigniting the longstanding debate regarding the price of the life saving drug, and causing the company’s stock to fall by 4.37% ($15 billion in market cap).
With most Western countries on the brink of record breaking recessions, the immediate economic loss that Eli, Lilly and Co. experienced, exposed the vulnerability of any corporation’s monetary value. Specifically, with regards to ‘Big Pharma’, the events of the last few weeks have sparked many discussions about the extortionate price tags on life saving drugs such as insulin, and what kind of person you have to be to approve of this.
We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account. Our official Twitter account is @LillyPad.
— Eli Lilly and Company (@LillyPad) November 10, 2022
Since the start of his latest endeavour, Time magazine speculates a loss of $9 billion in Musk’s net worth, with the CEO himself admitting that Twitter is losing an average of $4 million a day, marking a possible downfall of the economic tyrant. Many pasts employees and colleagues of Musk have branded him as an ‘apartheid profiteer,’ ‘lawless oligarch’ and a ‘megalomaniac’.
Musk is now a widely disliked figure, who for many represents the failure of capitalism and humanity’s slow descent into a 1984-esque surveillance state, since he is generally now in charge of what is and isn’t permitted on the site, the ability to block or remove criticism of any company under Musk – promoting censorship and in turn making us wonder if he plans to promote his capitalist ideals in order to boost his sales and investments perhaps.
Naturally, people are mocking Musk’s failures as a win against major censorship and internet imperialism. However, it has been less than a month since the takeover, and at its current rate, I don’t believe anyone can predict which direction Musk or his career is headed. Regardless, it will likely entertain those unaffected by it, relieved to finally see those who have so much to finally lose something.