by Ron Unz, The Unz Review:
Although it’s too soon to be sure, the early signs are not looking good for Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter, thereby demonstrating once again how easily the concentrated power of the media can destroy those whom it turns against.
The South African-born Tech entrepreneur entered the fray having several seemingly huge advantages. He already ranked as the wealthiest person in the world by a considerable margin. His Tesla Motor Company, constituting the bulk of his fortune, pioneered the electric vehicles that have become a major status symbol of affluent liberals, and despite a considerable decline in its stock, was still comparable in value to the combined total of the world’s next half-dozen automobile manufacturers.
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He simultaneously served as CEO of SpaceX, America’s best hope for continued domination of space, and its associated Starlink satellite network had recently proven itself a huge factor in modern warfare. Musk was not only considered an enormous technological hero, but he had also accumulated considerable media influence of his own, with his 118 million followers on Twitter probably giving him the reach of a major television celebrity or even an entire broadcast network.
Indeed, Twitter had become so important to him that earlier this year he boldly offered to buy the struggling social media giant and take it private. A decade ago, a leading Twitter executive had memorably characterized his company as representing “the free speech wing of the free speech party,” and Musk seemingly intended to roll back the mounting tide of censorship and restore it to that position.
For generations “free speech” had been one of the most universally cherished American values, but after Donald Trump used the power of his free speech on Twitter to unexpectedly win the White House, those prevailing sentiments very rapidly changed, and the need to exclude “fake news” and suppress “hate speech” became the accepted priority of all right-thinking individuals obedient to the narrative of the mainstream media. Beginning with a few extreme cases here and there, the volume of Twitter purges grew exponentially, until by early 2020 they had finally claimed the sitting President of the United States, and powerful elements of American society were very concerned that Musk might try to reverse that process. So his takeover of Twitter, substantially funded from his own pocket, was viewed by many as a horrifying and potentially dangerous threat to American values, with Musk himself increasingly portrayed as a Bond-style super-villain by the buzzing media beehive, an interloper whose nefarious plans had to be frustrated at all costs.
Twitter had already been losing money and the $14 billion in debt Musk took on to help fund his purchase made the situation far worse. Once the media painted him as a dangerous bad-thinker and Twitter suddenly became “controversial” his timorous advertisers—who provided nearly all of Twitter’s existing revenue—began dropping away, with each public declaration being loudly broadcast by the hostile media megaphone.
All of these major blows came despite Musk’s partial reversal of his proclaimed “free speech absolutism,” as he promised to maintain many of Twitter’s existing restrictions and except for a certain former President only reinstated the most milquetoast of purged Tweeters. This pull back quickly resulted in angry denunciations from some of the same individuals who had previously championed his takeover.
When expenses rise and revenue falls, financial problems result, and journalists reported that Musk had privately warned of the risk of bankruptcy as he prepared his drastic cuts to Twitter’s bloated workforce, even as most of the company’s previous top executives were fired or quit.
Earlier this month, Musk had intentionally reduced Twitter’s headcount by 50%, but on Thursday his media critics gleefully reported that one-third of his remaining staff had suddenly quit, with many of his crucial software engineering teams having almost totally disappeared. The front-page headline in the hostile New York Times was “Twitter Teeters on the Edge” and it darkly suggested that the company might be entering a software death-spiral, hardly encouraging news for the remaining corporate advertisers who were so necessary for the company’s survival. I’ve never much used Twitter myself, but if I’d invested years of my time and effort in building up millions of followers, I’d be feeling pretty worried right now.
Perhaps Musk will ultimately triumph against the odds once again, and successfully create the universal WeChat-type service he has envisioned. But right now, I think it much more likely that the apparently fragile social media giant will continue to decline, before ultimately winding up in different hands. And if our media can so quickly and easily crush the aspirations of the wealthiest man in the world, perhaps costing him and his financial backers the $44 billion they had invested, who in the future would risk such a challenge?
