Elon's pursuit of Twitter and Free Speech

State of our social media

Extract from https://datareportal.com/social-media-users:

Analysis from Kepios shows that there are 4.65 billion social media users around the world in April 2022, equating to 58.7% of the total global population.
Social media user numbers have continued to grow over the past 12 months too, with 326 million new users joining social media since this time last year.
The latest figures indicate that well over 9 in 10 internet users now use social media each month  

Most used social media platform as of Apr 2022

Overview of Social Media use as of Apr 2022

Elon and Twitter

His pursuit of Twitter was to provide a platform for Free Speech, especially for the United States of America.

Here is the extract of the 1st & 2nd Amendment:

The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. The Second Amendment gives citizens the right to bear arms.

Elon's goal to provide a platform where free speech can be exercised led to his pursuit of Twitter.

Elon has currently 96.8 million followers on Twitter.  This represents a good reach of 20.8% of all "Twitter-verse" whenever he tweets.  However, if we are to compare the 465M users to the 4.65 billion social media users in the world, it represents 0.1% of the global social media reach.  What is of concern for Elon is for US citizens (with an estimated population of 332 million) to have access to a platform offering "free speech".  Let us not forget that there are several countries that outlawed certain "content" and thus, free speech may end up with different interpretations in different countries.  We do not need to impose our definitions of free speech on another, especially if we are not willing to bear the consequence like jail terms in some nations.

If the pursuit of Twitter cost Elon $44 billion, this implies that he would be paying an average of $94.60 per user (out of which 20% already follow him).  I am sure that Elon has many considerations before he started his pursuit.  Personally, Elon could easily command the services of top programmers.  They can develop a "brand new" platform at a margin of the cost of $44 billion.  At the same time, he would not need to "handle" the board, their current product, culture and management.  This implies that he would need to build this from the scratch and thus, build up a new "user" base, and still keep it profitable.  There would be less time wasted steering a "stubborn" team whose values may not align.

Elon is a polarising figure in the world.  Some of the news media has cast him in a bad light and thus, leaving "negative" impressions about him.  Elon is not without flaws but it seems easier to sell news based on his bad instead of his contributions.  Thus, it would not be easy to get the "whole" US or parts of the world to embrace him.  (I must admit that I am from the "Elon Musk" camp who has been left in awe by his vision, passion and execution of a more sustainable future.  Apart from the quality of products, it was the quality of design, engineering and production based on the first principle that convinced me of his genius.) 

Despite being one of the best engineers of our times, social media remains a different beast as the response and result will differ.  It is not about getting a typical "superbly engineered" Tesla Model 3 at the end of the production line as people are different.  People have different values, upbringing, religious backgrounds, educational environments, and racial & language exposure.  This means that there will always be differences in views.  Cars do not hurl abuse back at you, criticise you or simply choose not to understand you.

Going back to the first principles, the key is free speech - not just a platform for free speech.  These platforms "carry" free speech but are not free speech themselves.  There are also some who choose not to. be on any social media platform - like my parents and some friends.  Some have been hurt by toxic experiences - be it cyberbullying, criticism, stalking or more.  Some just aren't savvy enough to navigate past using their phone calling and SMS functions. These will be the folks where social media touches them in minimalistic ways.

Thus, it is more important to promote "free speech" than the tool itself.

The cause is noble but with limited time on our hands, I hope that Elon would strongly consider other options apart from Twitter for free speech. I do not know Elon personally and I do not know him or this topic enough to advise.  But I have also learnt to embrace Elon for both his genius and eccentricity.  We do not have the luxury to choose only the parts that fit our palette.  

Some investors would rather Elon drop Twitter and focus on the rest of the businesses.  For me, this is part of the full package of Elon we have to learn to accept.  I do not need to follow him to buy into Twitter shares and I would not make myself a stumbling block for this genius for whom I have the utmost respect.  After we accept him for who he is, the journey does not lose its volatility but it does help us to manage our expectations of him and ourselves.  We will learn through volatility and painful times that "Elon is just being himself".  This is my way to support him apart from investing in his businesses.