Elon Musk adds Twitter to his list of companies

On April 25, Tesla CEO Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, leaving users in shock at his wealth and influence. Wiki Commons

The richest man in the world expanded his empire from the road to our phones. 

Lucy Bagnato, a freshman integrated educational studies major, said Elon Musk’s decision to purchase the social media platform Twitter was shocking, since it represents the expansion of the billionaire’s enterprise into a domain where accessibility isn’t determined by wealth.

“It's really interesting that people as powerful as Elon Musk can own companies we use every day," Bagnato said. "A Tesla seems very exclusive; it's (catered) to one group of people. But Twitter is something everyone uses, and so that, to me, is weird.” 

Musk, the CEO of electric car company Tesla, bought Twitter April 25 after an 11-day struggle with Twitter’s board of directors. Twitter’s board was hesitant to accept Musk’s $43 billion bid to buy the company, so they adopted a poison bill to stall their decision. 

The board eventually agreed to a $44 billion deal, or $54.20 a share, for Musk’s takeover. The quick turnaround left Twitter users in shock at Musk’s wealth and power. 

Musk claims he did not buy Twitter for his financial benefit but rather for moral reasons.

“My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” Musk said in an interview with TED. “I don’t care about the economics at all.”

Musk’s biggest critique of Twitter is that the platform does not allow for enough free speech. Musk plans to open Twitter’s algorithm to the public and loosen restrictions on offensive speech.

“Twitter has become the de-facto town square, so it is important for people to have both the reality and perception that they are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law,” Musk said in the same interview.

Many Twitter users fear the consequences of loosening speech restrictions on Twitter. Jeevan Acharya, a senior film production and computer science double major, told The Panther a platform as expansive as Twitter requires regulation to prevent it from becoming a safe space for misinformation.

“Twitter is such a wild west of a platform, that sometimes you're just going to have to moderate some things," Acharya said. "You don't want it to turn into a cesspool or something like 4chan, where it's this far right conspiracy theory hub. I think at a certain point there just has to be some basic level of moderation from those extremes, to even some copyright.” 

One way Musk plans to combat threats to free speech is by allowing access to Twitter’s algorithm on Github, a software development platform. 

Chapman marketing professor Niklas Myhr, known as the “the social media professor” to his students, said Twitter can benefit from open sourcing its algorithm by decreasing bots. 

“Elon Musk can improve the status of Twitter by reducing the number of bots that are swarming the platform with automated tweets," Myhr said. “If he is able to do so remains to be seen, and there are different approaches he could employ. Whether you do that with an algorithm that can find patterns of mass-created accounts, or whether you go as far as verifying identities on Twitter.”

Acharya said open sourcing the algorithm could benefit Twitter in different ways, but it may not decrease the amount of bots.

“I'm not necessarily against having open source algorithms," Acharya said. "I think in a lot of aspects that can be good, because we can understand how these social media platforms influence the way we think and try to take advantage of the certain ways we think as human beings and our addictive personalities. But I also think having that algorithm open to everybody won't necessarily address the main point of combating spam and combating bots.” 

In addition to open sourcing Twitter’s algorithm, Myhr said the platform could be improved by allowing third parties to develop more personalized versions of Twitter. 

“The possibility of opening up the platform for external developers to tap into Twitter's messaging and the network is going up,” Myhr said. “That could result in external third party apps that provide a better experience in a competitive environment, where you can choose the app that you think curates your feed in the way that fits your purposes and allows you to interact with the platform in a way that makes sense to you.”

Tom W. Bell, a professor at Fowler School of Law who specializes in high tech and intellectual property courses, proposed an alternative to Twitter he said would promote free speech more than Twitter ever could. 

“I think what would be interesting would be a truly open source alternative to Twitter, which is regulated by the users rather than a central authority in a decentralized manner," Bell said. "That would be a totally different model from Twitter. If done properly, I think it would give us a great deal more freedom of speech than even Twitter under Musk will be able to offer. I think that would be an experiment worth trying.”

Regardless of what changes actually occur on the platform, some Twitter users remain fearful that the addition to Musk’s list of companies is a testament to the entrepreneur’s excessive influence and wealth.

“That amount of money and influence is pretty striking and a little scary that one person can do this one thing," Acharya said. "On one side, he holds a lot of power and that could be directed somewhere better. At the same time, I think having that amount of power and influence through wealth is very disconcerting in our present day.”