So, why does Elon Musk want Twitter so badly? Is it because he is such a big free speech advocate, that he wants to โsave the world, โ save us all from BIG TECH?
Why does Elon Musk care so much about the number of bot accounts? Is it because he truly wants to ferret out foreign influences?
Why does Elon Musk want to reverse the bans on peopleโs accounts? Is it because he really cares about scientists, and conservatives ability to interact on the social media app?
The answer of course, is no to all these questions.
โWeโ are being manipulated into the vision of Elon being the free speech shield-bearer – but what has Musk revealed recently as to his true motivations for wanting Twitter.
Muskโs vision for Twitter is โone stop shopping.โ E-commerce. He intends to bring social media, banking, auto loans, Amazon type buying, insurance, paying loans and utility bills, medical insurance, service estimates, you name it- under the umbrella of Twitter. Everything you do, buy, need – could be bought on the Twitter website. This is about power and money.
Why does he care about bot accounts? Because what he is buying is access to you, to me, to each and everyone of us on Twitter now or on Twitter in the future. He wants to know the exact number of warm bodies to sell to his investors. Remember – with the purchase of Twitter, he will have a client base maybe in the billions – before he even launches a single product! That client base includes some of the most influential, wealthy and educated people on the planet.
So, why is this such a bad thing?
Letโs go back to free speech.
What happens if you are rude, share porn, use inappropriate language or only use binary gender descriptors? What happens if you believe that Russia should take over Ukraine? What happens if you are just a contrarian or a โscience denier.โ What if you donโt believe in gay marriage or do believe in gay marriage? Who knows what the societal drivers in the future will be? Who knows what the next โthingโ will be.
Because it is all good now to think that Twitter wonโt change, evolve into something new and unknown. But the truth is that social media platforms morph into new identities as soon as new apps, technologies and even cultural political ideologies change.
Muskโs bigger plan for Twitter is to turn it into a โsuper appโ that โacts as an operating system for peopleโs digital lives.โ
Musk recently stated at Teslaโs annual shareholder meeting
โItโs a pretty grand vision. And obviously that could be started from scratch, But I think Twitter would help accelerate that by three to five years.โ
Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2022