Elon Musk’s vision for Twitter
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2022
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today on Post Reports, tech reporter Nitasha Tiku breaks down what’s happening with Elon Musk’s bid to take over Twitter, what his vision of the platform would look like, and why Twitter is putting up a fight.
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Elon Musk is already facing pushback on multiple fronts on his plan to buy social media company Twitter. The billionaire launched his takeover bid last week after back-and-forth wrangling with Twitter since he became a major shareholder. First, he was invited to join the board. Then, he decided not to join the board.
Now, he wants to buy the whole company and take it private. But Twitter’s board and Musk’s own resources might make his takeover attempt a tough task to complete, and Twitter employees have concerns about his leadership.
Elon Musk’s vision for Twitter builds on the company's role as a public town square, but Musk wants to remove restrictions Twitter has developed to keep hate speech, harassment and toxicity off the platform in order to promote Musk's idea of free speech.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Give a helping hand this holiday season with the Washington Post helping hand. |
| 0:04.6 | This is John Kelly and I'm writing about Bread for the City, Friendship Place, and Miriam's Kitchen over the next few weeks. |
| 0:11.1 | Go to posthelpinghand.com to learn more and donate today. |
| 0:16.8 | It has been the most tumultuous couple weeks in, you know, billionaire drama here in Silicon Valley. |
| 0:25.0 | Natasha Tiku is a tech reporter for the post and she's been covering this whirlwind of events as Elon Musk tries to seize control of Twitter. |
| 0:37.0 | This all started on April 4th when Elon Musk took a 9% stake in Twitter becoming the company's largest shareholder. |
| 0:45.0 | All right, like them or not, it's impossible to ignore him. Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, is now the single biggest shareholder of Twitter. |
| 0:53.0 | That makes him a 9.2% owner of Twitter to be very precise here. |
| 0:58.0 | It also makes him the single biggest shareholder of the company even bigger than some of the biggest mutual fund and exchange traded fund investors in Twitter. |
| 1:05.0 | Twitter stock is soaring right now on this breaking news and you have to wonder whether Elon Musk's influence on Twitter will actually change the company in any way, of course. |
| 1:17.0 | What happened next is Twitter invited him to join the board, which would have put a cap on the amount of shares that he is able to own. |
| 1:26.0 | And so it seemed like, you know, it was veering towards a unpredictable, but sort of sensible end. |
| 1:34.0 | But then later that same week, Musk declined the board invitation. |
| 1:40.0 | And all of a sudden, you know, the roller coaster is back on. |
| 1:44.0 | And then this past Thursday, Elon Musk sends out this tweet. |
| 1:48.0 | He says he is going to try to buy Twitter and take the company private. |
| 1:53.0 | And Elon tweets out a link to an SEC filing that says very currently I made an offer. |
| 2:00.0 | And that's how he let the world know that he had launched a hostile takeover bid to buy Twitter for roughly 43 billion or $54.20 a share. |
| 2:10.0 | Loyal Elon accolades will note that he got his happy little 420 number in their reference to weed, which now many business reporters have had to say publicly. |
| 2:21.0 | Thanks, Elon. |
| 2:27.0 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is post reports, I'm routine powers. It's Monday, April 8th. |
| 2:34.0 | Today, we break down exactly what is going on with Elon Musk and Twitter. And we talk about what's at stake here for Twitter employees, for Twitter users, and for our democracy. |
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