Forget the endless drama, the bots, the abrupt twists, the spectacle, the supposed risk to the republic and everything we hold dear. The most important fact about Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter is that the moguls are now on the loose.
In the old days, when a tech mogul wanted to buy something, he needed a company to do it. Steve Case used AOL to buy Time Warner. Jeff Bezos bought Whole Foods for Amazon. Mark Zuckerberg used Facebook to buy Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus, and so on. These were corporate transactions carried out for profit motives, though perhaps they would not have taken place without a famous and energetic owner.
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, in a $44 billion transaction that finally came to fruition on Thursday, six months after he closed the deal, represents something different. This is an individual who bought him something that 240 million people use regularly across the planet. While he has other investors as partners, Musk will have absolute control over the fate of the social media platform.
It’s a difficult transaction to value, even in an industry built on transactions of this type, because it’s a highly unusual transaction that came about impulsively, on a whim.
But even by Silicon Valley standards, where billion-dollar offers are casually presented by companies that barely exist — and even to the wallet of Musk, who on most days can be described as the richest man on the planet. – , US$ 44 billion is not exactly a small change.
Buying Twitter is also an absurdly bold move — driven by the conviction that a communications platform that has failed in all its efforts to make serious profits and that has been embroiled in controversy over the limits of free speech almost from the day it emerged , in 2006, can be easily fixed by a certain person.
These days though, self-confidence never seems to be lacking if you have billions of dollars.
Musk’s fortune comes from electric car maker Tesla, which he has turned into the main vehicle for changing the way Americans drive, a task that can only be described as enormously difficult.
Washington Post, Time and Congressional Influence on the Shopping List
Musk and Bezos are separately fighting to recreate the space program, which in the 1960s was considered too important, and too expensive, to be managed by any institution other than the federal government.
Zuckerberg changed Facebook’s name to Meta and reoriented the company toward creating a virtual world in which people “will live” from now on.
Peter Thiel, one of the founders of the online payment service PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, has become the biggest donor of campaign funds for this year’s US legislative elections, pumping tens of millions of dollars into the campaigns of right-wing candidates for the Congress. Two of his former employees are Republican Senate candidates in Ohio and Arizona.
Richard Walker, professor emeritus of economic geography at the University of California at Berkeley and a Silicon Valley historian, sees a shift in the central focus of power.
“In this new Gilded Age, we’re being hit by billionaires, not the corporations that were the face of the 20th century,” he said. “And the tech titans are leading the charge.”
Musk, who dismantled Tesla’s public relations department, did not respond to a message asking for comment.
Rich people have always wanted to own media outlets, a tradition that the tech titans have maintained. Bezos bought The Washington Post for $250 million. Marc Benioff of Salesforce is the owner of Time magazine. eBay’s Pierre Omidyar has built a media empire from scratch.
$44 billion acquisition is just the 10th largest in Silicon Valley
Mergers and acquisitions have been a feature of Silicon Valley for as long as there has been a Silicon Valley. They often fail, especially when the acquisition involves technology that quickly becomes obsolete or never actually worked. At least one venerable company, Hewlett-Packard, followed this strategy and all but disappeared.
Dealogic, a data company, has compiled a list of the top 10 technology transactions since 1995 for The New York Times, by value. According to her, Musk’s purchase of Twitter ranks 10th on the list. Microsoft’s more than $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which is pending, has attracted only a fraction of the attention gained by Musk’s business, despite ranking second.
Activision Blizzard is just a video game company. Musk has maintained from the beginning that the purchase of Twitter is not a trophy, a prank or a scheme to increase his net worth. Instead, he’s been describing it in the grandest terms he can.
“Having a highly-trusted and widely inclusive public platform is extremely important for the future of civilization,” the entrepreneur said in April after closing the deal. “I don’t care at all about the economic side.”
But he seemed to care a little more when the subsequent slump in stock markets made his offer overly generous. Analysts estimated that Twitter was worth not $44 billion but $30 billion, or maybe even less. For a few months, Musk tried to walk away from the business.
Walker, author of “Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area,” fears for the future.
“Without unions, NGOs and local media, public is full of misinformation”
“There is no counterweight to the new business tycoons,” he said. “Trade unions, fraternal organizations and the local media lost a lot of traction. The general public found itself isolated from these positive influences, and inundated with misinformation.”
If Musk’s purchase of Twitter means the beginning of something, it also represents an end, on the other hand. The other social media platforms are under the control of their founders, due to the shareholding structure created for their companies. No one could buy Facebook and take Zuckerberg out of control without his consent, and the same goes for Snap and its main founder, Evan Spiegel.
“What was unique about Twitter was that nobody really controlled it,” said Richard Greenfield, a media analyst at LightShed Partners. “And now one person will own it in full.”
However, Greenfield is hopeful that Musk will improve the site in some way. Which would have its own consequences.
“If the transaction is a huge success,” he said, “other billionaires will try to do the same thing.”
Translation by Paulo Migliacci
Chad-98Weaver, a distinguished author at NewsBulletin247, excels in the craft of article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a penchant for storytelling, Chad delivers informative and engaging content that resonates with readers across various subjects. His contributions are a testament to his dedication and expertise in the field of journalism.
