The topic is once again, as Musk's takeover of the social network has come to an end.
The world's richest man has purchased a company. The Imperial March is happening.
We are all waiting to see what happens, but it is worth speculating on what the takeover could mean.
This is what we know so far.
It is almost certain that Musk will take the company private as soon as possible.
If Musk ends up in charge of Twitter, he won't have to file quarterly financial reports.
They can screw things up as much as they want, lose a bunch of users and tank profits, and public shareholders can't hold them accountable.
Taking the company private would mean it doesn't have to file earnings reports with the SEC.
We can only assume that Musk will oust the current board. There is no telling what the world's richest man will do with his new toy.
Our speculation could end up disappointing in the face of the outcome.
Let's take things a step further just in case.
Whoever owns the company can do whatever they want with it.
I'm careful to say who owns it, because it's possible that Musk didn't purchase it for himself.
We can be certain that he didn't use his own cash and that he secured funding to purchase the social network.
It is possible that he is part of a larger team that will want to have a say in day-to-day company operations. He might end up in control or the role of CEO. Maybe he will chair a board of his own design.
It's possible he could turn around and sell it to someone else. $46 billion is a lot of money and it doesn't seem likely.
There is a chance that Musk colludes with someone the board would never consider selling to in order to broker a shadow takeover.
Who could this person be? What about Jack Dorsey? Donald Trump? What about Jeff Bezos? What about Mark Zuckerberg?
Yes, why not? The theory is that it could be anyone. Let's add another person to the mix as well.
Anything is possible when Musk is involved. All bets are off until we see the paperwork.
The former President of the United States of America was banned from the town square.
Trump supporters are apoplectic at the thought of their favorite leader returning to his throne.
We have no way of knowing Musk's intentions regarding Donald Trump or any other banned people.
Everything Musk had to say was in the official press release.
Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.
There is no indication that Trump should uninstall the app, but there is a good chance that Musk is still talking about the deal today.
It's too close to call, our best guess.
One more conspiracy theory before we move on is that Musk declares himself the president of the company and that Jack Dorsey is its CEO. They will have ridiculous titles like Doge Lord and Executive Change Implementer.
👑 <—->
— jack⚡️ (@jack) April 24, 2022
If we hear back, we will update this article.
In one version of the future, Musk makes radical changes to the app. He makes good on his promise to eliminate bots and he makes an app where all speech is considered free speech.
This sounds great but, in practice, it might stifle the free speech of anyone who isn't willing to take discourse to the limit.
Maybe he has a plan to match his ambition. He may have invented a new mode of discourse.
In a different version of the future, perhaps a more likely one, Elon takes his hand at helming Twitter and runs into the same problem that every social media network has: content moderation is really hard. He eventually gives up and puts someone else in charge.
There is no realistic scenario in which millions of educators, academics, scientists, and global politicians continue to use a platform where speech is limited only by what is considered criminal in the US.
We are bound to see some form of moderation. It's easy to imagine Musk as the person who will swoop in and figure out the secret sauce that keeps the spirit of free speech alive while also allowing for free debate and the freedom of expression.
If Musk thinks teaching a car to drive itself is hard, wait until he tries to keep a social network afloat when tens of millions of troll suddenly find out they have been let off the leash.
It's a good chance that you'll see a severe identity crisis before it lands on its feet a bit worse for wear.
Will they have a user base left after who will be in charge?
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