The Twitter acquisition adds another variable: Will the FTC step in a sideways kick, will antitrust scrutiny spoil Musk's dreams?

* Text/Spades with long sword

Recently, the world's richest man Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter can be described as a lot of noise. Many media practitioners began to imagine how Musk would shape the new Twitter according to his own will, and Twitter employees were worried about whether such an unstable factor would completely ruin their jobs.

Of course, such a huge acquisition has attracted not only market attention, but also the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has been jealous of the expansion of Internet giants recently. According to Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter, the FTC is evaluating the Twitter acquisition, and at the latest next month, it will decide whether to investigate the acquisition in depth.

If the FTC decides to "give the green light" to the acquisition, all will be well, but on the other hand, if the agency makes a tougher stance next month, it will have the right to ask parties for more information and file a second acquisition application, while the Musk and Twitter deal may be delayed for several more months.

Hooking up with antitrust has always been something that Internet tech giants have been trying to avoid, but unfortunately, the FTC has been keen on this recently - as early as 2020, the FTC sued Facebook (now renamed Meta) for monopolizing the social application market, and under the leadership of the new FTC chairman Lina Khan, the FTC has been clinging to Facebook, although the latter has repeatedly asked for withdrawal of the lawsuit, but the "" The woman the Silicon Valley giants fear the most "is not at all moved."

Now that the FTC has put the world's largest social platform on trial, will it be indifferent to Musk's acquisition of Twitter? The answer is clearly no. After all, Twitter currently has 217 million mDAu (monetizable daily active users), which is far less than Facebook in total, but it is also one of the most influential social platforms in the world.

However, it is still debatable what the FTC will decide on the Twitter acquisition.

Some media practitioners and antitrust scholars believe that Musk's acquisition of Twitter does not exist in the "vertical integration" phenomenon common in antitrust litigation. Take Facebook, for example, its successive acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, which are typical of vertical integration in the social space. And Musk? He has electric vehicle companies (Tesla), rocket companies (SpaceX), tunnel companies (Boring Company) and neuralink companies (Neuralink), and many other investments, but only not in the social space. Based on this, optimists believe that the FTC cannot pick out the bones from the eggs.

The habits of American capital in the media industry have also become a shield for Musk supporters. Time magazine has previously given an example in an article saying that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had bought the Washington Post for $250 million, and that newspapers such as the Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times were held by big capital and that they had been "much healthier" for years.

Time magazine stressed that Musk's acquisition of Twitter should not be seen as a dangerous anomaly.

Of course, the reality may not be as smooth as the optimists think. Today's FTC President Lena Khan is not a bureaucrat who follows the rules, whether it is her paper accusing Amazon of monopoly involvement in college or her post-office speech, the main point is clear - the current antitrust law is no longer suitable for the digital economy era, need to be revised according to the dynamic environment, and change at the right time; on the other hand, she also advocates that law enforcement officers should more frequently block mergers and acquisitions that threaten competition, rather than relying on traditional measures to solve problems, and finally reluctantly approve them.

"We have to move quickly and move things forward." In an exclusive interview, Lena Khan said.

In her paper, Lena Khan mentions Amazon's cross-domain expansion. She argues that Amazon's previous multi-domain disorderly expansion has diluted its level of threat in a single area, making it look less like a "traditional monopoly" — something that seems to be the same as Musk's diversification today.

It's true that Musk doesn't have a monopoly on the social space, but when he acquires Twitter and continues to expand with the combined synergy of his businesses (car systems, StarLink networks, and social media platforms), who can stop him?

On the other hand, twitter is different from publications like The Washington Post in that it is more like a square where publications circulate freely, with super KOLs with hundreds or even tens of millions of fans, many american politicians, who can make a demagogic statement at the touch of a finger. These factors make Twitter's influence in the field of public opinion far more than a single media, which also means that the acquisition of Twitter is not only Musk's game, but also a game with the US political community.

Earlier, White House press secretary Jane Psaki had euphemistically stated that President Biden had long been worried about the power of large social media platforms; U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted directly against the acquisition, arguing that Musk "plays under a different set of rules" and that the acquisition of Twitter is a major threat to the AMERICAN democratic system.

It is worth noting that Warren had a fairly good relationship with Lena Khan, and a large number of antitrust officials, including the latter, had been promoted by her. At this point in time, her opinion will not have an impact on the Twitter acquisition.

*Image courtesy of Yandex