What’s Upsetting People About Elon Musk’s Buying Interest in Twitter

Elon Musk buying Twitter; will it happen?

Many are unhappy with the idea and visualization of billionaire Elon Musk buying Twitter and controlling the social media platform as he prefers. What specifically, however, is at the root of that concern, worry, annoyance and fear is the question for this article.

Musk has Twitter employees, the board of directors and a certain part of society stressed out that he would like to purchase the company. Could the business titan and visionary improve Twitter, which, for all its fans, is similar to Facebook in that is has its fair share of very vocal critics.

“The recent hostile takeover attempt of Twitter has turned a lot of heads. While takeovers are a common practice in public markets, Musk's stated objective is to reform speech on the platform,” says Al Morris, founder and CEO of Koii Network.

“That could mean reinstating banned accounts like former President Trump, but could also go as far as changing the rules of the newsfeed to favor different types of content, or to prioritize points of view Elon supports. That, along with reduced oversight as he will likely fire the entire board, would make Elon one of the most powerful figures in global politics.”

Al Morris, founder and CEO of Koii Network

The potential for good is certainly plausible yet significant doubts remain as to plans and probabilities, and optimism and excitement are not the prevailing emotions.

“Musk, as owner, could afford to take the profit motive off the table and, instead of leveraging outrage and controversy for ad dollars, facilitate a positive, inclusive, and healthy 21st-century town square,” says Mark DiMassimo, founder and creative chief of DiGo, but adding his skepticism, “Nothing he has said makes me think that this is his intention.”

Twitter catches ongoing criticism in different areas and calls for adjustments yet a large segment of users want it to remain just as it is, thus many detractors of Musk want him to stay away from Twitter in an ownership and ruling capacity. Company leaders feel this too obviously, as they went so far as to add a “poison pill” to any sale, writes Lauren Feiner of CNBC:

Twitter adopted a limited duration shareholder rights plan, often called a “poison pill,” a day after billionaire Elon Musk offered to buy the company for $43 billion, the company announced Friday.

The board voted unanimously to adopt the plan.

Under the new structure, if any person or group acquires beneficial ownership of at least 15% of Twitter’s outstanding common stock without the board’s approval, other shareholders will be allowed to purchase additional shares at a discount.

Musk is not the only person who sees how Twitter could be more powerful than it already is yet does his interest in acquiring the company motivate its leaders, without Musk, to improve the product?

“Brands have trouble growing when they are perceived to be bad for our behavior,” says DiMassimo. “Our Positive Behavior Change Index (DiMassimo Goldstein (DiGo)/Market Theory) measured the public corporations in the social media category and found that Twitter had one of the lowest PBC scores. This means that Twitter is perceived to be worse than average in the category in enhancing our lives through our behaviors.

“It also means that Twitter has to spend more to achieve growth than the average for the category. Those with high PBC scores can gain share with relatively lower spending, which is a huge advantage.”

Mark DiMassimo, founder and creative chief at DiGo

This is an opportunity for improvement.

“Twitter clearly needs work in this regard,” DiMassimo says. “Musk sees the issue in absolutist free speech terms. Extremists love extreme social media because they can dominate it, while moderate, open, reasonable users barely register. Musk is extremely intelligent but seems to lack emotional intelligence. He is the wrong person to calculate the emotional, psychological, and political effect of his proposals.”

DiMassimo explains the danger of owning the product and the potential reason for distrust of Musk having control over it.

“With ownership comes enormous power. Wiser people tend to see social media as the new town square and would therefore want to see limits placed on the power of ownership,” DiMassimo says. “One thing that Musk’s threat can do is light a fire under those who would roll out regulation for social media.”

He revisits talking about where exactly leaders can look at the platform, and themselves, to further develop through and past its problems.

“Twitter could be much better in self-policing and limiting the virality of incendiary tweets. However, the profit motive and competitive forces of a lightly-regulated marketplace make that extremely unlikely,” DiMassimo says.

He does see a glimmer of hope though.

“Regulation creates a level playing field that makes change possible,” DiMassimo says.