In the largest corporate privatization deal in U.S. history, Twitter has accepted Elon Musk’s offer to buy 100% of Twitter for 44 billion.
Musk plans to privatize the company and do away with ads, a nearly 5-billion-dollar revenue source for Twitter, which accounts for 90% of their total income. Musk’s plan to do away with ads was nothing short of strategic. Musk is a free speech absolutist – or someone who believes that free speech should be unrestricted at all costs.
Advertisers are the main reason speech is restricted on social media platforms. For social media giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter who rely on advertisers buying space on their platforms, as well as sponsored content, to make most of their profits eliminating this revenue stream is not a decision that should be taken lightly. Without these restrictions or community guidelines, advertisers would not advertise on social media, and the sites could not generate much of their revenue.
But, when your pockets run as deep as Musk’s, I suppose revenue doesn’t particularly matter.
Some changes Musk plans on making are as follows: He claims, that despite the lack of advertisements, he will quintuple Twitter revenue by 2028. He plans on doing this while cutting Twitter’s reliance on ads to less than 50% of the total revenue. He also plans on growing the platform’s user base. He claims by 2025 there will be 69 million users on Twitter (however, considering 69 is his favorite number I’m not sure if this is accurate or another one of his famous trolling stunts). He also plans on offering a paid service, Twitter Blue, which will allow users to customize their Twitter experience for only $3 a month.
However, advertising is not the only hurdle to free speech on a social media platform.
Now Musk will face a barrage of questions and restrictions from government watchdogs, regulators, and activists. Twitter could even end up being banned in other countries if Musk attempts to skirt regulations. Musk wants to strip back content moderation rules and stop the censorship of new organizations; he has also not answered questions about how he plans to go about this, only stating that he’d only allow free speech that “matches the law”.
However, several European countries are changing their laws. New laws in the United Kingdom and The European Union (which comprises 27 European countries). The EU, for example, has enacted the Digital Services Act and The Digital Markets Act which aims to create a safer digital space, while protecting the rights of users and leveling the playing field for businesses. These acts extend to social media. The acts, in part, heavily fine companies that refuse to curtail illegal content on their platforms. However, as of May 9th, 2022, EU Industry Chief, Thierry Brighton, met with Elon Musk in Texas and they have reached an agreement regarding free speech and The Digital Services Act. Yet, the pair has not gone into detail about what exactly their agreement entails. When asked, Musk simply stated that it “totally aligned with his thinking”.
Musk may have circumvented the largest spanning cyber laws, but that does not mean he’s out of the woods regarding governmental regulation of Twitter around the world.
Now, the decision for Musk to purchase Twitter, and go public was a polarizing one and was met with mixed reactions. People did not hold back, and many roasted Musk for his decisions.
Some of my favorite reaction tweets are:

Okay, but they make a good point. He’s been heralded as a “Real-life Tony Stark” and there’s nothing technically stopping him from being Iron Man.

Live your dreams I guess, Elon.


Sure some people are disgruntled by the whole ordeal, but there’s really not a way to boycott this. In fact, the user base is only projected to grow for Twitter, with Elon at the helm.

And, in true Musk fashion he trolled Twitter users, critics and fans by tweeting a series of Tweets detailing which companies he was going to buy next.

Musk then said would buy America’s most popular fast-food chain, and fix the most common complaint. I have to admit, I kind of want him to follow through on this one.
First, he threatened to buy Coca-Cola and put the cocaine back in, referring to the inception of the popular soft drink, when it first contained cocaine.

Lastly, the new Twitter CEO threatened to shut down the entire platform altogether, so that all the users go outside.

UPDATE:
As of Friday the 13th (spooky), Musk announced his Twitter bid of 44 billion dollars is currently on hold.
He claims he still plans on following through with the acquisition, and he will owe Twitter a one-billion-dollar breakup fee if he does not follow through. However, if he can afford to spend 44 billion on a social media website, I have to assume one billion dollars isn’t much of a deterrent for him. The bid could be on hold for multiple reasons.
He could be trying to negotiate a better price for Twitter, the deal could be falling apart or he could simply be walking away. One issue is that he was going to borrow against his smart car company, Tesla, but Tesla stock has been plummeting as of late. A part of me wonders if this is some kind of bizarre stunt in order to get media coverage and attention prior to unveiling a new concept at either Tesla or SpaceX. After the frenzy the news of Musk purchasing Twitter has caused, the deal may not even go through, and once again, the future of Twitter remains uncertain.
Kelly Grothe
March 18, 2011 at 10:32 am
When you are looking at a photo you can also refresh the page to get back to the old view 🙂
Lani Rosales
March 18, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Kelly, it doesn’t always work on Chrome 🙁 that *was* the hack I used but it figured me out….
Wayne Harriman
March 19, 2011 at 9:59 am
F5 works every time for me on RockMelt, which is Chrome-based.
Juan Carlos
March 18, 2011 at 10:59 am
Shift-enter! Thank you for that!
I actually like the new photo viewing lightbox, but you know why 🙂
Lani Rosales
March 18, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Oh my photographer friend, you WOULD like it. 😉 #blacklightbox
Liz Benitez
March 18, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Maybe I missed it but I didn’t see the hack for “The inability to right click and save a picture” 🙂 that one gets under my skin. Although I am fine with peeps not being able to save my pictures.
Lani Rosales
March 19, 2011 at 4:59 pm
Hey Liz, if you use the Google Chrome “revert” extension, you’ll be able to see pics like you used to at which time you can right click to save. 🙂
Mike Salway
March 20, 2011 at 5:27 pm
With the new photo viewer, there’s a “Download” link down the left bottom corner – that’s how you download photos 🙂
Joe Loomer
March 19, 2011 at 8:45 am
These are all great tips, Lani – but what I really, really need is to get the events function to allow me to invite all the people on a friends list with one click. The “select all” function has dissapeared and all i can find in the help menus talks about groups, not lists. I create and publish at least four-five events per week and now I have to go through the time to invite each of the 800-plus agents in our area that are in my realtor list, for example.
Navy Chief, Navy Pride
Lani Rosales
March 19, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Joe, Facebook has made several attempts just like Twitter to disallow bulk activity to keep the system more human and less automated, but you’re right, the “select all” button should come back!
Jason fox
March 19, 2011 at 1:09 pm
The automatic edge ranking kinda freaked me out. It was like one day all of my friends disowned me :(. I get the idea of edge, and as a marketer its very important that we understand it, but I personally dont want Facebook or anybody else telling me which of my friends I should interact with. My profile is set to All. Nice post.
Lani Rosales
March 19, 2011 at 5:01 pm
I AGREE, Jason. They shouldn’t default behaviors like this, they should make you choose which you want. Average users think they’ve been abandoned. Great idea, horrible execution.
Carole Sanek
March 21, 2011 at 10:35 am
For those who accidentally post by hitting enter all you have to do is remove your remark it will come back to you and you can edit it or keep on writing. Cool beans.
Missy Caulk
September 21, 2011 at 11:26 am
Perhaps you should update this today since there is a hol lotta whining going on over there today.