Man, oh man, did Elon Musk do a fabulous head fake on the world last month when he indicated to his almost 80 million followers on Twitter that he was interested in possibly creating a social media platform that was focused on free speech. Everyone thought he was looking into spending his billions on creating a platform from scratch.
Nice move, Elon.
According to news reports, he just went ahead and bought a massive chunk of Twitter.
Elon Musk has taken a 9.2% stake in Twitter, according to a US securities filing.
The news sent Twitter shares soaring about 25% in pre-market trading.
Musk is a regular Twitter user with more than 80 million followers, although recently he said he is giving “serious thought” to building a new social media platform.
Late last month Musk asked his followers whether they thought the social medial platform encouraged free speech.
Now, I’m not a brain surgeon, but when you purchase almost 10 percent of anything and spend close to three billion dollars doing it, I think that makes you a player in said venture overnight.
Musk has not kept it a secret that he is not a fan of how the big social media platforms have handled oppressing views that the brass at those companies does not like. He is one of the rare people that have both a massive social media following and also the money to do something about it.
Elon Musk has made it clear that when it comes to woke culture, he has no time or patience for it. To be sure, social justice advocacy is effectively a business holding itself back in many ways in order to please a political fad of the time.
One thing Musk seems to have a very real aversion to is the “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ECG) standards which are effectively a leftist activist’s wishlist for corporations to check off so activist investors know who to put their money into. Not following these standards may wind up with your corporation being targeted by activists and a lot of bad PR.
True to form for leftist activists, however, they’ve jumped on the bandwagon of wanting war with Russia in order to protect Ukraine and as such, ESG funds are now being directed towards defense companies who make weapons that fight hostile regimes according to entrepreneur Marc Andreessen.
Obviously, Musk has decided it would be easier to influence a company that already exists and on which he also has a big following, rather than start a brand new one from scratch. This clearly is why he is as successful as he has been, this guy knows how to maneuver and strike a great deal.
This actually is the move that I thought Trump would do after he left the White House in 2021. Putting together with some investors and buying stakes in the company that had banned him and others who supported him with terms of service rules that nobody understands. Violating the mythical Terms of Service has silenced many on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
With Elon’s history of being successful with anything he touches, the sky is the limit for Twitter and maybe they’ll drop their fascist mentality about trying to stifle anything that hurts their feelings.
A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
