Where to Fly?

“The bird is freed”, so said Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who closed the $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter, Inc. The platform where millions obtain news and politicians worldwide exert influence now belongs to a private company. Some top people within the firm were immediately dismissed, including the CEO, CFO, Chief legal counsel, and general counsel. What Musk is going to do with Twitter is not entirely clear. However, his previous comments shed some light. His criticisms of the social media include “spam bots”, speech restriction, and over-dependence on ads. Musk described himself as “free-speech absolutist” and indicated that he would reverse permanent bans of users. However, he also stated that he would not let the platform be “free-for-all hellscape”. In fact, he indicated that he would follow strict EU regulations on social media in EU countries. A content moderation council will be established with “widely diverse viewpoints”. As expected, the prospect of changing moderation policies led to different responses in liberals and conservatives. As for ads which account for 90% of the $5 billion revenue of the company, Musk wants them to be “relevant”, implying that the ads may be more targeted based on user data. It is worth noting that Twitter has a very small share in the digital ads market, where 75% is taken by Google, Amazon, and Meta. Moving forward, Musk is expected to cut costs and explore new services. He may want to build a superapp with messaging, payments, and E-commerce, among others.

Why it matters: New content policies will likely have impact on the political landscape in and out of the platform. Also, if Twitter becomes a superapp, similar to WeChat which offers social media, online shopping, money transfer, service booking, and ride sharing, it might revolutionize multiple industries.