Twitter will thrive under Musk

Confusion abounds from those who don't know him and his methods but experience shows how the way Elon operates will very likely make Twitter a success

And so Elon Musk is buying Twitter.  Cue a storm of outrage and protest as many who understand and know little about him pour their confusion and fears onto social media.

"He'll let Donald Trump back in!", they cry.

"It's the end of freedom and democracy!", they shriek.

"It's a right-wing conservative takeover!", they moan.

"It's another billionaire's plaything, he should feed the world, give to charity and end poverty instead!", they exhort.

All of which is patent nonsense to anyone who has been paying attention to Musk for any length of time.  I can't say what will happen as a result of Musk's takeover and whether he'll improve Twitter, leave it alone or make it worse.  But I can say that I am considering rejoining for the first time in many years.  I think he has a good shot and here is why.

First of all, let's deal with the misconceptions.

It isn't clear that Musk is a conservative at all.  He self-identifies as a centrist and he has voted Democrat before, notably for Obama in 2008 and 2012.  So, if anything, he is more than likely left-of-centre.  These days the Democrats have jumped far to the extreme left (well not all, notably Bill Maher, but many), making Musk appear right-wing.  Also, he is hardly likely to be beholden to any groups, being the richest man in the world(!)  Much more likely that he will follow his own agenda, and indeed he has spelled out exactly what that is as we'll see.

It also isn't clear why this would spell the end of freedom and democracy.  Many social media companies have billionaire owners, including Twitter itself until very recently, with Jack Dorsey's share (albiet small as a percentage).  Also, some - e.g. Meta - have different share classes that mean their owners (like Zuckerberg) exercise extreme control with a small percentage.  Other tech companies have huge foreign shareholders that are opaque to determine and are very much more likely to serve non-democratic ends.  Surely freedom is about the right for anyone to buy Twitter, if they can afford it?

Crying 'end of democracy' is incoherent.  What on earth does ownership of a private business have to do with democracy?  Now, if the concern is about the 'public square' where conversations are conducted, then this is precisely with what Elon is concerned.  If people had been paying attention they'd realise preserving and enhancing public discourse is one of the prime reasons he has bought Twitter.

On Trump, yes, he might get back on to Twitter, although he has ruled that out publicly.  He may change his mind, if allowed back.  However, it cannot possibly have served the public discourse to have banned a sitting US president!  January 6th was no insurrection and as careless and ill-advised as Trump's utterances definitely were, there was not justification for banning him.  It simply served to widen the divide between left and right.  As someone firmly in the centre, I'd much rather have Trump where I can see and hear him, so that his bad ideas can be challenged and his good ideas (even if few) encouraged.

It's a tired and ill-informed trope that billionaires should simply give their wealth away to the poor and charities.

First of all, as Elon has said, he considers all of his business to already be charities, in the sense that their are designed to improve the well-being of humankind; by transitioning us to sustainable energy, solving traffic, curing serious medical problems, exploring and developing the solar system so humanity survives and thrives.

Secondly, it is really easy to waste money by giving it away and have it end up in the wrong hands or be used for unintended purposes.  Effective charitable giving is really hard and there's a reason Bill Gates and others have gone full-time into overseeing how their money is spent.

Thirdly, the best way to end poverty around the world has consistently been shown to be precisely the kinds of economic development through business entrepreneurship, growth and employment that Musk has been involved in for the last two decades.

If you want to know if a billionaire is in it for the money, look at their lifestyle.  Musk has no homes, no yacht, little or no ostentatious consumption and a private jet simply to make him more efficient.  He is one of the most ascetic billionaires alive and absolutely the wrong target for the "billionaire greed" label.

What does Elon want for Twitter?  He's been clear that he wants to focus on free speech, improve the dialogue, massively increase the transparency of Twitter's policies and actions, make algorithms open-source, end spam and properly authenticate users.  Ambitious goals certainly, but not ones that justify these recent negative headlines.

Much of the latest criticism is that Musk is ignorant of how Twitter operates and won't find it possible to achieve his goals.  That's possible but to accuse him of ignorance at the start of any of his grand projects is to completely misunderstand him and how he operates.

Elon Musk starts every new adventure from first principles, initially knowing little or nothing about the area and deliberately rejecting the established ways of doing things.  Then through trial and error and rapid learning, his new operations, that fumble and fail at first, gradually learn and grow and then become great successes.  The early days of Tesla were beset with mis-steps and problems, but now it is a great success.  Similarly with SpaceX, it almost failed early on but now is a great success.  The Boring Company achieved little for years but now has produced tunnelling technology far ahead of competitors.  Neuralink will be the same.

So, yes, almost certainly (as he admits) he doesn't have all the answers and will make mistakes.  But in the long-run, based on his track-record, I am confident he will make a big success of Twitter and create the kind of platform I will want to rejoin.

Give him time, the purchase itself will likely take 6 months to complete and then the learning and iterating starts. 

It will be wild at times but before long, my money is on Twitter learning to thrive!