BACK
This post may refer to COVID-19

This post may refer to COVID-19

To access official information about the coronavirus, access CDC - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

EXPLAINER: What Elon Musk at Twitter might mean for users
www.local10.com

EXPLAINER: What Elon Musk at Twitter might mean for users

Tesla CEO Elon Musk now has a 9% stake in Twitter and a seat on its corporate board of directors, raising questions about how the billionaire business magnate could reshape the social media platform.

Business

Tesla CEO Elon Musk now has a 9% stake in Twitter and a seat on its corporate board of directors, raising questions about how the billionaire business magnate could reshape the social media platform. He is now Twitter's biggest shareholder and has the ear of top managers.

DOES MUSK HAVE A HISTORY WITH TWITTER?

Indeed he does. Musk’s 80.5 million Twitter followers make him one of the most popular figures on the platform, rivaling pop stars like Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga. But his prolific tweeting sometimes gets him into trouble when, for instance, he uses it to promote his business ventures, rally Tesla loyalists, question pandemic measures and pick fights with those with whom he disagrees.

Click to continue reading

In one famous example, Musk apologized to a British cave explorer who alleged the Tesla CEO had branded him a pedophile by referring to him as “pedo guy” in an angry — and subsequently deleted — tweet. The explorer filed a defamation suit, although a Los Angeles jury later cleared Musk.

He's also been locked in a long-running dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over his Twitter activity. Musk and Tesla in 2018 agreed to pay $40 million in civil fines and for Musk to have his tweets approved by a corporate lawyer after he tweeted about having the money to take Tesla private at $420 per share — which didn't happen but caused Tesla's stock price to jump. His lawyer has contended that the SEC is infringing on Musk's free speech rights.

WHAT DOES MUSK PLAN TO DO AT TWITTER?

Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist” and has made clear that he doesn't think Twitter is living up to free speech principles — an opinion shared by followers of Donald Trump and several right-wing political figures who've had their accounts suspended for violating Twitter content rules.

But what's really driving Musk's Twitter involvement isn't clear. His preoccupations with the service include arguing to make Twitter’s algorithm viewable by the public, widening the availability of “verified” Twitter accounts, and blasting a profile photo initiative involving non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.

Musk has also called “crypto spam bots,” which search tweets for cryptocurrency related keywords then pose as customer support to empty user crypto wallets, the “most annoying problem on twitter.”

“We don’t know what his goals are,” said Jennifer Grygiel, a Syracuse University communications professor and an expert on social media. “Maybe Elon Musk secretly wants to blow (Twitter) up ... maybe he wants to destroy it.”

WHAT CAN MUSK ACTUALLY DO AS A BOARD MEMBER?

Musk's role as both a board member and Twitter's largest shareholder certainly gives him an outsized voice in the company's future. He's been publicly praised this week by the CEO and other board members, a sign that Twitter leadership is likely to take his ideas seriously.

But he's still just one member of a 12-person board that Twitter says has “an important advisory and feedback role” but no responsibility over day-to-day operations and decisions. That means Musk won't have the authority to add an “edit button” or to restore Donald Trump's suspended account.