4 reasons why Elon Musk was so keen on taking full control of Twitter

With the news of Tesla CEO Elon Musk sealing a deal to buy Twitter for $44bn (Rs 3,30,000 crore), a pertinent question that comes to mind is why did the world’s richest man want Twitter so desperately. We list four reasons:

Extraordinary potential

The relationship between Elon Musk and Twitter is apparently a tale of a one-sided love story so far. With his around 84m followers, Musk loves and seems like enjoy his time on Twitter, tweeting prolifically and sometimes controversially.

Musk was banned by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from tweeting about the Tesla affair after on tweet of Musk wiped $14bn of its share price.

Earlier during Thailand’s cave rescue affairs in 2019, Musk was sued for defamation following his tweet about a cave diver in which he called him ‘pedo guy’.

In recent interviews, Musk said, “He wants to see Twitter fulfil its extraordinary potential.”

Musk’s elusive politics

Musk in his recent interview, when asked about his thoughts on how Twitter should be run, he replied that he wanted to see more “free speech” and “less moderation”. Many Republicans, who have long felt that Twitter’s moderation policies favour left-leaning ideologies, rejoiced echoing Musk’s vision for Twitter.

There was even a demand to bring back, Former US President Donald Trump, who was banned from Twitter but was also very popular among Twitteratis for his late-night all-caps tweets. However, Trump denied returning to Musk-owned Twitter.

Twitter finances

Twitter’s main business model is ad-based just like any other social media platform. Musk wants to change the same. He is more interested in subscriptions, he claims, which could prove a hard sell in an environment where all the main social networks are free-to-use.

Since its launch, Twitter has not been able to clock great numbers on its financial sheets despite putting enormous efforts.

Musk’s eternal love for Cryptocurrencies

Every now and then Musk tweets about cryptocurrencies leading to a sharp reaction in the price of tweeted crypto coin/tokens. Could he use the platform to incentivise payments in volatile, unprotected currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, etc.?

Musk is the richest man in the world. His success includes services like PayPal and self-driven Tesla cars. He is a charismatic, unfiltered, and highly polarising figure who drives public sentiment at his whim. Musk has a base of loyal fans who adore him and defends his action day and night on social media.

In the coming days, it would be interesting to follow how Twitter will turn out to be, with Elon Musk at the helm of the affairs, for its 300 million users.