Musk became Twitter's largest shareholder, wanting to build the world's social media giant?

Tesla founder Elon Musk recently bought a 9.2% stake in Twitter, becoming the largest shareholder of the famous social platform. Soon after moving in, he rushed to launch a poll asking netizens if they wanted to increase the edit key function.

Does this series of moves mean that the world's richest man, who has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with Twitter's freedom of speech, will be further addicted to the development of social platforms " without doing business " , or will he simply think that this investment is a wise investment?

After Musk took the stake, Twitter's stock price quickly rose by more than 27%, the biggest increase since its listing in 2013, and its Tesla also benefited, with its stock price rising 5.6%. I am pleased to announce the nomination of Musk to our Board of Directors. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted on the 4th that he is not only a passionate Twitter fan, but also has a warm criticism of the platform. That's exactly what our platform and board need to be stronger in the long run.

After just becoming Twitter's largest shareholder, Musk did not stop, and launched a poll on his personal social account number with 80.39 million followers asking: Do you want to edit the key? More than 4.4 million people have voted in the polls so far, with 73.6% in favor and 26.4% against. Still, since he's only one of 12 members of Twitter's board of directors, he's not the only decision-maker within the company. Regardless of the poll result, you will not be able to add an edit key according to the result.

In fact, the issue of edit keys has always been controversial, because it involves long-term changes on the platform, and Twitter users are still polarizing. For this problem, Liz Wheeler, a well-known American program host, worries that after tweets get a lot of attention, they will abuse the relevant editing features to bring the wind direction or even change the meaning of tweets; Andrew Bosworth, meta technical director, believes that facebook can be imitated and edited tweets can be added to the edited tweets to solve the problem.

Agravar also took this seriously, and in response to Musk's polls, he stressed that the polls were quite important and called on netizens to vote cautiously.

In fact, Musk was already the business giant who was the most concerned about Twitter before he joined the stock, and often issued controversial tweets, causing a lot of turmoil and even being asked to leave the platform. For example, during the Sleeping Beauty Cave rescue operation in Thailand in July 2018, Musk was publicly accused of participating in the rescue by a British diver who assisted in the rescue as a "public relations stunt" and used insulting words to attack Musk. Musk countered on Twitter calling him a "pedophile man," but then deleted the tweet. The incident later led to a defamation case, which Musk eventually won.

In August of the same year, Musk tweeted that he had received investment and was considering taking Tesla private, and the company's stock price rose in response. However, two weeks later, Musk announced that he would abandon the plan, and investors were angry and filed a lawsuit. In the end, Musk and Tesla were each fined $20 million. The incident also sparked an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which eventually led to an agreement between the two sides to require Tesla's lawyers to pre-approve certain of Musk's tweets.

In February last year, Musk sent several tweets calling Dogecoin, which made Dogecoin's value soar, making it the fourth largest cryptocurrency in the world. Three months later, Musk claimed that Dogecoin was a scam, causing its price to plummet. In November of the same year, Musk launched a vote on Twitter asking if he should sell 10% of Tesla shares, and tesla shares plummeted 16% in two days.

Musk has also used Twitter to spread misleading and inflammatory remarks about the new crown epidemic, as well as ridicule President Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, etc., and has faced many criticisms and accusations.

Today, Musk has gone from a Twitter-like presence to the largest shareholder of the social platform, and his large acquisition of shares is certainly unexpected. In particular, the world's richest man has only recently repeatedly questioned Twitter's failure to abide by the principle of free speech, and even launched a poll asking netizens whether he wants him to build a new social media himself, as if he intends to start another fight with Twitter. Finally becoming the largest shareholder of Twitter can be described as the most unexpected ending.

Therefore, the outside world is very interested in the calculation behind Musk, and some opinions believe that he hopes to become the most influential leader on the platform and become the most influential leader within the platform. This may be more effective in promoting free speech on twitter platforms that it cares about, and other suggestions to open up public resources to platform algorithms.

There are also opinions that he may further use the social platform to grow his business, such as his famous cryptocurrency, Musk may be Twitter's ultimate tool to realize the long-term dream of promoting the world's non-statutory currency. Still, some worry that he may be neglecting the attention of his own business because he is addicted to developing social media.

While we're not sure of Musk's intentions, such as whether he will further increase his stake, we believe he will influence Twitter's long-term business strategy. Investment analyst Ali Mogharabi said he may seek to influence the openness of the platform and how the platform controls content or pushes for more aggressive investment in subscription models such as Twitter Blue, a paid subscription feature.

As one of the world's leading social platforms, Twitter had 192 million daily active users last year, 63% of users between the ages of 35 and 65, and the ratio of women to men is about 1 to 2: 34% of women and 66% of men. After more than a decade of development, this platform has become an important source of news, entertainment and commentary around the world because of its lightweight and fast-spreading characteristics, and has attracted many celebrities and celebrities to use. However, in recent years, it has also begun to face many operational difficulties, including stagnant user growth, weak advertising sales, and continuous losses of hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years, and there are long internal plans to sell.

The company's fourth-quarter earnings were slightly less than expected last year, with revenue up 22 percent year-over-year to $1.57 billion. Twitter expects revenue of between $1.17 billion and $1.27 billion in the first quarter of this year, which is worse than market expectations, and GAAP operating losses of $175 million to $225 million. However, the average profitable daily active users (mDAU) for the quarter recorded 217 million, up 13% from 192 million in the year-ago quarter and up from 211 million in the third quarter. Among them, 179 million mDAU from the international community, up 15.5%. For the full year, Twitter revenue was $5.08 billion last year, up 37% year-over-year, and adjusted operating net income was $273 million, with a net loss of $221 million.

From this point of view, Although Twitter may not be a 100% Xun Diao. However, if you consider that Musk may be interested in developing social media, investing in Twitter has certain advantages over self-built platforms, which must be a huge inherent user base. On the other hand, at a time when many social media companies are increasingly turning to dropshipping, i.e. ads designed to get users to buy, pay to subscribe or download things directly, Twitter's relatively low proportion of direct advertising also has its advantage, with the proportion of direct advertising accounting for only 15% of overall advertising, so it is less affected by Apple's recent privacy policy adjustments. It remains to be seen whether Musk's stay will bring an editing button to Twitter, or greater plasticity.