Commentary
The impending acquisition of Twitter by the world’s wealthiest person, Elon Musk, is one of the most improbable developments out of the business world—and, indeed, the political world—in decades. Though a fairly modest percentage of adult Americans use Twitter, at least when compared with more popular social media outlets like Facebook and Instagram, the platform is disproportionately influential in shaping the news cycle and driving current events. Much like a major newspaper outlet, then, the composition of Twitter’s ownership matters, even if it matters more for social than for purely financial reasons.
Musk is famously inscrutable—perhaps even enigmatic. But his reasons for acquiring the social media company for a cool $44 billion seem reasonably clear. The Tesla and SpaceX magnate wants to bring free speech and open discourse back to Twitter, which suffered under the heavy-handed reign of its woke co-founder and former CEO, Jack Dorsey. For his efforts, and assuming he can cross the t’s, dot the i’s and consummate the acquisition, Musk should be applauded by everyone opposed to the American ruling class’ censorious hegemony. That ruling class routinely got its way under Dorsey, as encapsulated by former President Donald Trump’s post-January 6, 2021, Twitter banishment.
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