Elon Musk has purchased a large stake in Twitter. Is Musk paving the way for the return of Donald Trump?
Within the last couple of hours, I received a news alert that Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and other ventures and widely considered the wealthiest man in the world, has acquired 9.2% of Twitter stock. If you're thinking to yourself, "That's less than 10% of the stock - is that significant?" the answer is yes. The ownership of these large, publicly traded companies typically is so diluted that a single shareholder who owns 9% of a company may be able to exert de facto control, or at least considerable influence, over the composition of the board of directors and its policies. The board of directors hires the CEO and other senior officers of the company. Acquiring a stake of this size is a time-honored tactic for corporate raiders like Carl Icahn. It's probably fair to describe what Musk is doing here as a hostile takeover bid - or at least the Twitter board of directors will need to treat it as such.
An operator like Icahn would acquire a large stake in a corporation for a straightforward reason: to boost the price of the stock and make a lot of money. Let's assume Musk, whose net worth apparently is $273 billion, expects a similar outcome. But if we can take Musk at his word, making a profit isn't his motive, or at least his only motive. On March 25th, Musk, who is a famous (and somewhat controversial) user of Twitter himself, with over 80 million(!) Twitter followers, tweeted, "Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle? The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully." The tweet was a poll, allowing recipients to vote Yes or No to the question Musk posed ("Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?"). The results:
No: 70.4%
Yes: 29.6%
A few things to note, in no particular order:
1. If this poll's results had been printed on paper, the results wouldn't be worth the paper they'd be printed on. The scientific, statistical validity of a Twitter poll probably is zero. But we can safely assume that scientific rigor wasn't Musk's goal. If Musk wants a statistically valid poll, he can afford to commission one. Presumably, the reason Musk conducted the Twitter poll is to build popular support for what may be a hostile takeover of Twitter.
2. Legally speaking, Musk's framing Twitter's policy as a matter of free speech is equally specious. The First Amendment's free speech clause states, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". My attorney friends assure me that Twitter's policy is not a First Amendment matter, as Congress did not author its filtering and banning policies. Twitter's policies are those of a private company.
3. We may choose to take Musk at his word: he's genuinely affronted by Twitter's policy of filtering certain content and banning certain tweeters. It must be nice to be the richest person in the world; if a company's policies offends one's principles, one can simply purchase it.
4. Casting a shadow over this story, as over so much else in our contemporary lives, is the figure of the world's most famous person to be banned from Twitter, Donald Trump. It may not be too much to claim that Trump rode Twitter to the White House, and shored up his base's support throughout his chaotic presidency with his frequent tweets. Twitter allowed Trump to circumvent the traditional news media and reach his followers (and detractors) directly. Trump surely views his being bounced from Twitter as a major impediment to his return from political exile. Btw, Trump, another rich guy although not in Musk's financial league, is pursuing a different remedy than Musk: Trump is trying to launch a competitor to Twitter, known as Truth Social.
Count me among those who is grateful that Trump no longer is able to tweet. Still, like Musk, I'm troubled by the ability of a platform like Twitter to decide who is worthy and who isn't. To be frank, I don't trust corporate leaders to act for the common good - even if they seem to have made the right call in the instance of Trump. Many companies are making what I consider the wrong call by continuing to do business with China, including suppressing content that is critical of the Chinese government as a condition for doing business in China.
Trump's ban from Twitter has spurred legislative proposals from Trumpist, populist Republicans such as Senator Mark Hawley to enact government legislation to correct what they view as an injustice. Those folks' wing of the GOP is not the one I live in, and I don't trust their ability to come up with a just remedy. But I've struggled to articulate a set of principles which simultaneously permit free and fair exchange of views on social media in a way that supports the common good. It may be that the status quo of private-company enacting and enforcing their own policies is the least worst we can do.
If Elon Musk succeeds in a hostile takeover of Twitter, he may loosen Twitter's policies, and perhaps Donald Trump would be permitted to return to the platform. Is that okay? I'm genuinely not sure.
Almost all our mass communications are privately owned which means they are not free to pursue truth. Newspapers aren't any better. They are owned by large concerns which have their own agendas. Sometimes it's a corporation, sometimes it's a Bezos (Washington Post). Such ability to control information is a bigger threat to democracy than Trump. Conventional liberals praised the Twitter ban and justified the move as legal since Twitter and Facebook are privately owned. It may be legal but it's not good for democracy to be in this situation. Now voices critical of the war in Ukraine are being denounced as pro-Putin. Wars should always be criticized, whether it's Republican-approved or Democratic-approved. The main problem is the concentration of wealth and it's power to buy legislators and media. Trump's a scumbag, and the ban on his insurrectionist rantings has weakened democracy even more.
ReplyDeleteI have seen in our state how acquiring 9-11% of a company's publicly traded stock can wreak havoc. I can believe that someone like Musk could do that to Twitter. I'm not a Twitter-pate, so really don't have a dog in that fight.
ReplyDeleteMusk could very well let Trump back into Twitter. But I don't think his goal is necessarily to reinstate Trump. I think he may be pondering entering politics himself. Which wouldn't be an improvement on Trump, maybe even worse than him. Because Musk is smarter than Trump.
At least Musk couldn't be president, as he wasn't born in the US. I don't know why he'd want to get into politics, but I suppose it's irresistible to someone with an ego.
DeleteThat's right, I forgot he was born in South Africa. But seems like he has a pretty big ego, I wouldn't be surprised if he found politics appealing.
DeleteDoes not surprise me any that the richest man in the world wants Trump back into politics. All the culture war issues just distract us from the real issue which is the power of the richest people in the world.
ReplyDeleteI don't know much about Musk; he seems to be a obsessed like Trump with making the news to be about himself. Like Trump he really does not care whether you are for him or against him as long as you are always talking about him.
As for him getting into politics, he would probably flop like Bloomberg.
ReplyDeleteHe really does not have Trump's ability to entertain a sizeable audience.
DeleteRe: Trump's ability to entertain, I really don't see how he can be considered entertaining. He is as entertaining as nails on a chalkboard, or the wind blowing from the sewer plant.
Delete"I'm troubled by the ability of a platform like Twitter to decide who is worthy and who isn't."
ReplyDeleteWhy? Your local newspaper (if you still have one) reserves the right not to print letters from people who rant, brag about their sexual prowess, and make up lies.
Your local tavern or restaurant has the right to toss out patrons loudly doing the same.
You have the right to call the cops on anybody doing so in your backyard who won't leave.
A global virtual space struggles more to set and enforce community standards, but a privately held company is not a public utility.
If you don't like Twitter's policies, you can select a different platform. I don't use Twitter, and I no longer look at it. Too much dreck to wade through for too little useful info.
"Why? Your local newspaper (if you still have one) reserves the right not to print letters from people who rant, brag about their sexual prowess, and make up lies."
DeleteTrue. And your overall take is admirably conservative!
Your analogy is good but not perfect. Twitter doesn't have editors who assign stories and shape content. It's not governed by the canons of journalism. It's different. It's unedited, unfiltered content, unless and except for what the Twitter gods decide to filter or ban.
And the platform's reach is magnitudes bigger and more influential than any single newspaper. It's kinda like the AP or Reuters but even more so: every single journalist follows it obsessively so they know what to write stories about.
The bottom line is that mass communications is enclosed and controlled by rich corporations and individuals. Recently, YouTube deleted all of Chris Hedges' "On Contact" interviews because they were broadcast on RT and they rarely even mentioned Russia. Mostly authors discussing their books. A friend of mine was banned from the WP forum for describing all the beneficial things the price of a Javelin missile can purchase. That's considered pro-Putin and not pro-Americans who could really use it. All-in-all, whether legal or not, it's not healthy for democracy for privately owned media to determine what is seen and heard.
DeleteI think concerns about social media are a distraction.
DeleteWhat I think is more nefarious, and maybe to Stanley's point, is the conglomeration of American media into the Big 6 media corporations.
CBS (Paramount Global's) hiring of Mick-Fricking-Mulvaney should make the blood in more veins run cold than Elon Musk and his Magic Mushrooms playing around on Twitter.
When Trump was on Twitter many more than half the responses to his Tweets were of the "go soak your head" variety.
When Mulvaney gets on CBS, there won't be that kind immediate pushback.
Congress, meantime, is obsessed with social media and our phones tracking us. It can't take on the Big 6 because politicians like lobbying $$, the gigantic media stage needed to reach voters, and the cushy commentator jobs available after retirement (we Milbank above).
Jen Psaki is transferring from the WH to CNN. Or is it really a transfer? Everything is about big bucks and infotainment. I cannot believe that this system has any purpose other than to perpetuate this system.
DeleteHad not heard that about Psaki.
DeleteI hadn't heard the media conglomerates referred to before as the Big 6, but I am not surprised about that trend.
DeleteOligopoly is where every industry ends up, whether it's gas stations or breakfast cereal or media and entertainment. From many small entities to a few large entities. If the government permitted it, some of them would try to take it to its logical conclusion, which is monopoly.
In the business world, arriving at oligopoly is the very definition of a mature industry.
I thought Jen Psaki did a good job in her position. Part of that was by comparison with Trump's various press secretaries. We will miss her. Wonder who her replacement will be.
DeleteThe Big 6 changes depending on acquisitions, spinoffs, mergers, etc. Right now I think it's Paramount, Fox, Sony, AT&T, Disney, and Comcast.
DeleteI think it would be a mistake to see these entities as having a political agenda in any Orwellian sense. The Overlords in the board may influence tone, slant, and issues covered (or not covered). But if something is making them a lot of money, they're not going to mess that up with too much doctrinal pressure.
What I think is pretty insidious is the way the entertainment products tend to show Americans as more prosperous, attractive, and carefree than they really are. Some years ago, critics started writing about how people were "TV ugly" or "TV poor" or "TV fat." That is, the actors are given glasses, a weird haircut, or unflattering clothes to suggest these traits, thus telegraphing viewers that most Americans just need a bit of tweaking (with whatever the sponsors are selling).
(Sidebar: Both Raber and I noticed that a particular kind of ripple afghan started showing up on set sofas to indicate "Midwest working class." We have the same afghan his mother made about 50 years ago. There's also a granny square afghan that makes the rounds to denote "elderly working class." Once you start seeing them, you notice them everywhere.)
I should hasten to add that the above sounds a little glib. Millions of pages of criticism and analysis have been expended on the way the American media drives American consumerism, so a few paragraphs above can't hope to cover it all!
DeleteSorry. I think it's MSNBC to which she's going. I get them all mixed up. For some strange reason.
ReplyDeleteMusk is now on the board of twitter. I have never used twitter nor looked at it. Musk sees himself perhaps as a kingmaker, and trump is his choice for king. trump's latest social media app seems to have failed to even get off the ground so far, just as his website failed. I suspect that the reason Musk bought a big share of twitter was so that he could get on the board (done now) and influence policies - which would include lifting the ban on trump so that he can "energize" his "base" and return to the WH.
ReplyDeleteStory in the NYT about a new dark money group of right-wing billionaires meeting at Mar a Lago. Apparently Koch and the others who fund GOP aren't quite right-wing enough for this crowd. The country is run by billionaires now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/us/politics/republican-donors-rockbridge-network-trump.html?referringSource=articleShare
I use twitter but I follow select people: Chris Hedges, Matt Taibbi, Katherine Hayhoe, Michael Mann and other climate scientists and contrarians. I find their instant responses to current events to be informative. There is plenty of superficiality to be had but there are smart people on it.
Delete"Now"? Rich people have always had outsized influence on everything.
DeletePardon my tangential rant below:
I have been periodically obsessed with the Elizabeth Holmes story for the past few years. How did a squirelly little weirdo like that get so many million-dollar high-profile investors? The media narrative was that she batted her buggy eyes and the old geezers just melted and wrote checks.
That strikes me as both ageist and unlikely, especially since there's an alternative story that seems more plausible:
Obama-Biden were pushing their health care initiative, which rich conservatives saw as more socialism. They put money in Theranos because, if it succeeded, it would prove that the free market could solve health care cost problems with new tech invented by a new generation of work-obsessed boy/girl nerds.
Plus Holmes and her family had good Country Club Republican creds. Elizabeth was one of them. Her family had inherited wealth. Her father worked for Enron, and her mother was a political staffer.
I'm also guessing that investors gave as much sycophantic flattery as they received around those cozy familial brunch tables: Elizabeth, your invention will not only help people, but create jobs and show that red-blooded capitalism and innovation, not cold-hearted socialist bureacracy, will save lives and invigorate the American Way.
I find it hilarious that it was the bureaucracy of the CMS that put a halt to the fraud. Yeah, the investors lost money, but they would have lost more if the Medicare/Medicaid service had not investigated.
Somehow, I doubt the bureaucrats got any thank you letters from Schultz, Kissinger, Murdoch, Ellison, and the other high-powered investors and board members.
The rich are supposed to be smarter than everyone else at least with money. But Madoff and Holmes and Trump show they can be snookered like everyone else. If money is all one cares about, one is all ready for the fleecing shears.
DeleteJean, I had been periodically obsessed with Elizabeth Holmes too. I read the book on her by John Carryrou. She was part phony grifter and part actually believed in her own b.s. I have have known people who thought if they believed something hard enough they could make it come true. Holmes tried to pattern herself after Steve Jobs, wearing black turtlenecks like he did. There are interesting YouTube clips of how she consciously altered her voice to make it sound lower. Supposedly that projected power and authority.
DeleteHolmes, like a lot of GenX/Millennial entrepreneurs, liked cheesy little motivation soundbytes that make them sound like heroes. She was constantly saying in interviews, "First they say you're crazy, then they fight you, then you change the world."
DeleteBut a motivational slogan is not a substitute for sound research methods or an ethical foundation on which to run a company.
That motivational rubbish reminds me of Hitler and his Triumph of the Will. You can have all the motivation and will you want but there's a real world out there and it takes work and effort and sometimes that's not enough.
DeleteLots of workplaces subscribe to motivational posters that they change out every week. Most are cheesy and irritating, if anyone actually reads them, which is unlikely. Then there are demotivational posters, which poke fun at the official ones. They say such things as, "Believe in yourself. Because everyone else thinks you're an idiot."
Delete