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Overnight, Musk's business empire expanded again, extending from hard technology to new media.
In just 11 days, Twitter's board went from hard to soft and accepted Musk's $44 billion bid.
That is, next, as long as it is approved by Twitter shareholders and regulators, Musk can pocket Twitter in its entire pocket, and it is the kind of privatization and delisting.
And this will also make up for an important piece of the puzzle that is still missing in Musk's business map today.
media.
In the meantime, from the present - SpaceX flying in space, Tesla running on the ground, Boring digging tunnels underground, to the future - Neuralink, which connects the brain to the machine, and then to the public opinion field of the virtual world, Musk will be firmly in his hands.
△ Source: TIME, Musk Universe
Therefore, as soon as the news came out, the public opinion field directly exploded.
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey directly sided with Musk, saying that "Ma Yilong is the only solution I trust":
It's time to take Twitter back from Wall Street.
Musk's goal is to create a platform that is "trusted and inclusive as much as possible," and that's why I chose him.
But the opposition is really not small:
I don't believe Musk can have a positive impact on Twitter, and at best it's abuse.
Some people even directly "ran away with the bucket" and flocked to Twitter's rival open source social platform Mastodon, causing the latter's user registration to surge overnight.
Why should Musk buy Twitter
Then again, from the sudden snap-up of nearly 3 billion worth of Twitter shares on April 5, to the acquisition of Twitter on April 15, and then to the continuous contact with Twitter's major shareholders to persuade them to support their acquisition plans, Musk is really a fierce move in the matter of "chasing" Twitter.
So why is he so persistent, so desperate that he even throws out a high price of $54.2 per share?
Note: This price is a 38% premium to Twitter's closing price on April 1.
Musk's official caliber is:
Twitter's digital age of Civic Square, where discussions critical to the future of humanity will take place.
I want to improve the product with new features, open source Twitter platform algorithms to enhance trust, and fight the robot trolls, verify all human users, and help Twitter become better than ever.
As previous analysts believed, Musk's involvement is mainly aimed at changing Twitter's content policy and public opinion environment.
But as mentioned earlier, not everyone buys Musk's "free speech" claim.
Twitter employees, for example, are really confused now.
According to the New York Times, although Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal came forward to say that "Twitter will operate normally," internal employees have never heard a single explanation from senior management on the matter in the past two weeks.
Employees said that since Musk announced his intention to buy Twitter, abolish its content censorship policies, and delist Twitter as a private company, internal employees have become very cold to him.
You know, as a Twitter big V, Musk himself was also very popular within the Twitter company.
In 2020, Jack Dorsey, the founder and CEO of Twitter, invited Musk as a "mystery guest" to attend one of Twitter's corporate summits.
At that time, Musk caused cheers from the audience as soon as he appeared, and Twitter employees shouted at him, "We love you."
However, in fact, this kind of big capital into the media industry is almost worthy of the "basic exercise" for European and American business tycoons.
Previously, Bezos had bought the Washington Post for $250 million and invested $5 million in business insider.
Premier League Liverpool's current boss John Henry bought The Boston Globe from The New York Times.
Time magazine is also wholly owned by SalesForce founder Marc Benioff.
……
However, the amount of these acquisitions has not been as large as the amount of Musk's acquisition of Twitter.
In addition, some people think that the acquisition of Twitter may be another "imagination" for Musk.
After all, he asked the question in 2017: "How much does Twitter cost?" ”
This style of acting is reflected in SpaceX, which carries Musk's "ultimate ideal".
Musk has said that SpaceX was founded because he was disappointed in the U.S. space program and felt that they were "not ambitious enough."
Musk's business empire
It is worth mentioning that the operation of the acquisition of Twitter is actually Musk's "usual method".
20 years ago, Musk earned his first pot of gold by founding two companies, Zip2 and PayPal.
With this wealth, Musk has done two great things.
The first was to create space company SpaceX to achieve its goal of a sea of stars.
The other is investing in Tesla.
In 2004, Musk invested $6.5 million in Tesla from the $100 million he received from the sale of PayPal, which at the time was only $7.5 million in Series A funding.
Musk has no doubt become Tesla's chairman of the board and largest shareholder.
Three years later, Tesla founder and first CEO Eberhard was asked by Musk to leave the company.
Today, Tesla has been deeply personally imprinted by Musk, and few people can remember Tesla's original founder.
Starting with Tesla, Musk gradually began his personal business map:
SolarCity was founded in 2006 and was acquired by Tesla in 2016 for $2.6 billion.
In 2016, he founded Neuralink, a brain-computer interface company.
In 2016, he founded The Boring Company, an underground tunneling company.
There is also the non-profit organization OpenAI.
It can be seen that previously, Musk's goals mainly revolved around his car, as well as the commercialization of cutting-edge technologies.
Doing big things is one thing, but Musk has never been "muffled.". On the contrary, Musk, who has always been "big mouthed", regards personal Twitter as the most important platform for individuals to speak, not only expressing personal opinions, but even some company events are first launched on Twitter.
This practice of running in the direction of "first Internet celebrity" has not been less beaten by the US SEC.
In addition to the acquisition of Twitter, Musk also "shouted" to privatize Tesla but did not have sufficient funds, and was warned by the SEC, and finally subscribed to a fine of $20 million.
Therefore, although the reasons given by Musk are grandiose, and they are "open source" and "freedom", it is inevitable that the outside world will have such doubts:
From technology companies all the way to media companies, I am afraid that there are also considerations for opening up for themselves.
If Musk's previous investments were all technology companies, then this time he invested in a media company to open the way for himself.
After all, Musk's old rival Bezos bought the Washington Post, which has a reason to protect the Amazon empire.
In short, 18 years later, like Tesla, Musk is to control the same company.
The difference is that Musk is now richer, able to come up with $44 billion at a time and stage a domineering president plot.
One More Thing
By the way, since Musk wants to buy Twitter, many people have speculated that he is going to the president of the United States.
Although, the answer is no.
Musk was born in South Africa, and U.S. law requires that a presidential candidate be born in the Continental United States. (Manual Dog Head)
References:[1]https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/25/twitter-accepts-elon-musks-buyout-deal. html[2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31153277&p=2[3]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/technology/twitter-employees-elon-musk.html
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