Following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the fate of the social media platform is now up in the air. The US$44 billion dollar acquisition deal closed at the end of October, after which Musk immediately fired Parag Agrawal, who had succeeded founder Jack Dorsey as Twitter chief executive officer, as well as chief financial officer
Following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the fate of the social media platform is now up in the air.
The US$44 billion dollar acquisition deal closed at the end of October, after which Musk immediately fired Parag Agrawal, who had succeeded founder Jack Dorsey as Twitter chief executive officer, as well as chief financial officer Ned Segal, legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Edgett. Mass firings followed last week as Musk initiated cost-saving measures (although reportedly some of the fired employees were asked to return on the weekend).
Musk has been vocal about his plans for the platform, saying he wants to promote free speech, “defeat” spam bots on Twitter, and make the algorithms that determine how content is presented to its users publicly available.
According to Luke Lintz, founder and chief executive officer of HighKey Enterprises LLC, a public relations company that targets entrepreneurs and business owners looking to enhance their digital brands through social media, Twitter is going to turn into a “decentralized” social media platform.
“They will pretty much allow anything to go onto the platform. That’s 100 per cent free speech you’re gonna get. You’re gonna get all kinds of conversations about any topic.”
Lintz added that centralized social media platforms such as Instagram have the power to delete a user’s profile, however, he thinks Twitter is heading into a space that would give people ownership of their content.
Musk is also taking the company private. This means he no longer has to comply with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations or be responsible to any shareholders.
“Musk wants total control of Twitter without external accountability,” said Brian Jackson, research director at Info-Tech Research Group.
Now that Musk is the only owner and chief executive officer of Twitter, without any board to oversee matters at present, there can be no interference with the strategy he wants to pursue.
This has been done before, Jackson noted. In 2013, Michael Dell decided to take Dell private.
At the time, the company was struggling, as personal computer sales slumped since smartphone popularity was increasing. According to an SEC filing and article from The Verge, Dell believed going private was vital to transform the company from primarily a PC maker to one focused on providing large organizations with entire information technology systems and managing them.
