by Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been chaotic, to say the least.
He repeatedly changed his mind about the deal, cracking jokes and tweeting poop emojis along the way. But now that his ownership of the social media platform is very real, many have questions about what’s next.
While we’re still early in Musk’s reign, it’s already clear that there are some people who have made significant financial, political, or reputational gains, and others who see real damage or risks. Here are the winners and losers so far.
Delaware Court of Chancery
Elon Musk is known for breaking business rules and norms. This has caused problems with regulators, but he has still managed to do what he wants with little or no consequences.
Even after the SEC fined Musk $20 million for sending an allegedly misleading tweet about his plan to take Tesla private, Musk continued to overstep the bounds of his resolve by sending unauthorized tweets — a risk the world’s richest man could afford to take.
So when Musk changed his mind about buying Twitter, many believed he would somehow get away with it, even if his legal case seemed weak. But this time, Musk didn’t make it. That’s largely due to the Delaware Court of Chancery, the corporate court overseeing Twitter’s lawsuit against Musk.
If he continued to fight the case, Musk would be forced to reveal potentially embarrassing texts from his friends that could damage his image. And he faced a judge with a no-nonsense reputation who might end up ruling against him. Despite having an almost endless amount of money to fund a top legal team, Musk eventually relented and closed the deal with Twitter on the original terms he had agreed to in April.
This was a victory for the rule of law, showing that even if you are the richest man in the world, sometimes you have to do your duty.
conservatives
Musk considers himself a “free speech absolutist” and has insisted that his main motivation for buying Twitter is to make it a more open, unregulated platform for people to express their beliefs.
Conservatives see this as a major victory. US politicians such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) have encouraged Elon’s takeover, hailing him as a leader who defends their persistent and unsupported claim that Twitter is biased against the right. wing contents.
Former President Donald Trump said he’s happy “Twitter is now in sane hands” and no longer run by radical leftist lunatics and maniacs, his social media platform Truth Social reported on Friday. Musk has previously said banning Twitter from its platform after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot was a mistake, indicating he may bring her back — though last week he said he was holding off on any decisions on restoring the accounts for now. -be-formed advisory board weighs.
Meanwhile, one of Musk’s first tweets as Twitter’s new owner was in response to conservative commentator “Catturd,” telling them he “digs” at the user’s claims that his content is “shadow-banned” or secretly suppressed by Twitter. .
However, Musk has his limits when it comes to appeasing conservative influencers because he also has to keep advertisers happy. That’s why he promised advertisers in a tweet Thursday that he won’t make Twitter “a free-for-all hellscape where you can say anything without consequence!” While we’ve seen some hate speech since Musk’s takeover, Twitter has so far not publicly changed any of its content moderation policies. Conservatives still see Musk’s takeover as a victory.
Twitter’s largest shareholders
Buying Twitter for $54.20 per share is seen as a loss for Musk, as Twitter’s value plummeted shortly after Musk made his initial offer. But the shareholders who bought the company’s stock at a lower price have made a killing.
Many of the largest shareholders are companies that invest money on behalf of wealthy clients, such as Florida hedge fund Pentwater Capital, which is expected to make more than $200 million, according to a CNBC report. Pension funds that invest in teachers, police and state workers in New York, California, Florida and Wisconsin could also see significant returns, according to a Reuters report.
Elon’s inner circle
Part of what we learned through the Elon-Twitter legal proceedings is how many tech investors, founders and other figures in the tech world wanted to get behind Elon by donating funds to the Twitter deal.
“You know I’m a ride or die bro – I jump on Grande [sic] to you,” said angel investor Jason Calacanis in an April text to Musk, revealed in court documents.
Now, Calacanis and other tech leaders, including investor and former PayPal executive David Sacks, are offering their help Musk’s advisers during this transition period.
Overnight, figures like Calacanis and Sacks — who also host their own popular tech podcast — appear to have gained at least some influence on a major platform that’s important in generating news and even influencing stock prices.
Twitter employees
When Musk’s contract expired, he immediately fired Twitter’s top management: CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and director of legal policy, trust and security Vijaya Gadde. Now he will join the rest of Twitter’s 7,500 employees.
Employees expect Musk to make drastic cuts; According to the Washington Post’s most recent estimate, that number is about 25 percent of the company. In an earlier report, which Musk has denied, the number was up to 75 percent of the company’s personnel.
To keep their jobs, some Twitter engineers are asked to work long shifts and deliver new product ideas under tight deadlines, or risk being fired.
Employees are being “pulled left and right into frenzied scrambles or projects trying to save their jobs,” said a Twitter employee who spoke on condition of anonymity and called the frenzy “pure chaos.”
Other workers, with less hope, are quietly waiting to be fired.
“People are tired of talking about it, tired of being in limbo,” said the employee. “I think at this point everyone is waiting for the next chapter.”
Musk could try to terminate employees for cause instead of firing them, which would help him avoid paying severance pay and benefits.
While most of Twitter’s staff may survive the Elon-Musk transition — and some employees are excited about the change — working through a publicly tumultuous business deal has been a nerve-wracking, demoralizing experience for many.
Elon’s other companies
Elon Musk is a busy man. In addition to managing Twitter, he is the CEO of the electric car company Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX.
Both companies are now losing the focus of their hands-on leader. Musk is also pulling out some of his senior employees – reportedly pulling more than 50 Tesla engineers from the company’s autopilot team to Twitter.
All of which means Musk and his top lieutenants have less time building cars and rockets and more time figuring out the intricacies of running a politically contentious social media company.
Elon’s investors
People who invested in this trade will face big losses. It includes members of the Saudi government, individuals and major banks such as Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays.
That’s because they bought Elon at a now-inflated purchase price of $54.20 a share before Twitter’s stock price plummeted due to the recent economic slowdown, which has also depressed the valuations of many other big tech companies.
Some investors even publicly expressed their regret over the deal and hoped it didn’t go through.
Somewhere in this group – especially the big banks and wealthy foreign nations – plays a small fiddle with an amount of cash on hand unfathomable to everyday people.
Unless Musk manages to make his investment profitable in the long term by increasing the value of Twitter, they are the immediate losers in the Elon-Twitter saga.
Twitter users
We have yet to see how this plays out, but right now Twitter users are facing a lot of uncertainty about the app’s future.
Anyone who used Twitter in the pre-Elon days knows that it can often be a cesspool of harassment, bullying, and malicious conspiracy theories. However, over the past several years, the company has been building internal teams related to content moderation and user safety in an effort to improve the experience. And some evidence shows that their work has had an impact.
Musk’s takeover could jeopardize those improvements. He said he doesn’t think Twitter should be doing so much content moderation, and he’s expected to make significant cuts to the teams at Twitter that do that work.
Musk has also said he won’t remove any legal content — leaving room for a wide range of offensive content, including racial slurs, violent depictions and harassment, which are protected in the United States under the First Amendment.
Hate speech on Twitter has already increased since the Musk deal was closed. One study by the Network Contagion Research Institute found a 500 percent increase in the use of the n-word On Twitter within 12 hours of Musk’s takeover. Twitter’s head of site integrity has said this was not the result of any changes to Twitter’s anti-hate speech policies, but rather a coordinated trolling campaign to tweet more abuse incidents timed to Musk’s takeover.
This could negatively affect Twitter’s business. Last week, GM, a major advertiser, said it would suspend spending on the platform until it sees what direction Twitter takes under its new leadership. Musk has to strike a balance between keeping these advertisers happy while maintaining his commitment to letting users say what they want.
Musk himself follows this line. In recent weeks, she’s been posting memes of herself with the openly anti-Semitic Kanye West, and she shared a link to a conspiracy theory about an attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi (Musk was later removed those tweets).
Of course, users may also have a lot to gain if Musk exceeds critics’ expectations and succeeds in turning Twitter into a more open platform that also protects user security. But given Musk’s personal history of promoting online harassment and misinformation, and the fact that other social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube have struggled for years to strike that balance, it seems unlikely that Musk — the eternal poster child for bullshit — is the one . realize it suddenly.
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