Elon Musk and the Terrible Purchase of Twitter
On October 27th, billionaire Elon Musk acquired Twitter for over 44 BILLION dollars. But why did he spend so much money on Twitter of all things? Why is it an absolute waste of money? And what does it mean for you? That is what I will be discussing today.
“I don’t even understand why he would even buy Twitter,” says senior, Riley Fuerbringer.
Others have shared the same confusion, because buying the social media platform for 44 billion dollars seems extremely odd, and came right out of the left field. Twitter itself isn’t very profitable, so why would Musk shell out so much money on it?
Well, originally, Musk tried to buy Twitter for the same absurd price back in April, but he realized that this was a terrible idea. He tried backing out of that purchase but wasn’t able to, and now had to either go to court over this or purchase Twitter; he chose the latter.
Now, with Elon Musk forced to buy Twitter, many wonder what changes in policy he’ll make.
Just recently, Musk has announced multiple changes coming to the platform. One of these changes has been quite controversial, which is the new policy that you must pay to keep your verification status on Twitter.
Verification on Twitter is a tiny, white, checkmark right next to someone’s name. This checkmark shows that it is not a bot or scammer that you are interacting with, but the real person.
Before Musk bought the app/company, the verification feature was completely free. But now, starting now, you’ll have to pay $8 per month for the feature.
Musk says that this change was made to help truly verify users and to get rid of a class system on Twitter.
What’s odd is that this change does neither—and only creates a larger class system, and makes it harder to verify users, as many will not be paying a monthly fee to keep their verification.
What it sounds like to me, is that Musk is just trying to make some quick money. But this does not surprise me, for Musk has a past for doing many misdeeds, just like many other billionaires.
In fact, it seems like Musk’s original intentions for buying the company are nowhere to be found. Freshman Carson Frushour notes this when he told me in an interview, “Elon Musk said he was going to allow free speech since he bought it [Twitter].”
This promise of freedom of speech was the very first thing Musk alluded to, making statements such as “The bird is freed” and “Comedy is now legal”.
What’s odd about this is that according to businessinsider.com, ever since Musk announced to be less lenient on censoring free speech, racial and homophobic slur usage has gone up by 500%.
Now, this could just be a case of sad, lonely, internet trolls trying to get attention, since the world now has its whole eyes on Twitter. While this is likely, it is just as plausible that the “free speech” is now allowing racist and homophobic content to plague the site.
No matter which one you believe, it’s still clear that something changed during Musk’s acquisition, and it needs to be taken care of.
Finally, how will this affect you?
Well, at the moment, there will be almost no changes for you. The only changes that will affect you are having to pay for a verification check (if you already have one), and possibly seeing more hateful content.
Hopefully through this, you’ve seen why this purchase was terrible, the lie of free speech that came with it, and how it will hardly affect you at all.
If you have any comments, questions, or criticisms, feel free to email me.
