Jon Schwarz of The Intercept observed that not lengthy after Musk took management of Twitter, he posted this letter to Twitter’s advertisers on his personal Twitter feed.
Musk revealed that his imaginative and prescient for Twitter is “a typical digital city sq., the place a variety of beliefs will be debated in a wholesome method.” However a couple of paragraphs later, he declares, “Twitter clearly can’t turn out to be a free-for-all hellscape, the place something will be mentioned with no penalties!”
Why is that this important? Properly, Schwarz notes, Musk is all however admitting that the necessity to preserve Twitter’s advertisers comfortable trumps any need to ramp down content material moderation. How’s that, you ask?
Twitter’s content material moderation has generally been heavy-handed — particularly when it froze my account as a result of David Duke bought mad at me. However this isn’t as a result of Twitter is run by a woke mob. It’s as a result of Twitter must preserve advertisers comfortable — and their high precedence is a sure type of atmosphere for his or her advertisements.
This may take particular varieties. Delta most likely has it written into its contract that its advertisements received’t run close to any tweets about airplane crashes. However extra usually, advertisers don’t need something controversial that will get individuals out of the shopping for temper, or worse, mad on the manufacturers themselves. Proctor & Gamble can’t enable its advertisements for Charmin, focused on the Upscale Panera Mother micro-demographic, to look beneath frothing diatribes about annihilating all Muslims.
Schwarz then notes that Twitter has solely turned a revenue for 2 of its 16-year existence, and is prone to bleed cash for the foreseeable future. If, nevertheless, Twitter’s advertisers have any purpose to be nervous about how Musk is working the platform, the losses might zoom to the tune of billions of {dollars} a 12 months.
That, Schwarz believes, is why Musk was all however pressured to undertake what quantities to “the mission assertion of pre-Musk Twitter.” In any case, the necessity to please advertisers implies that it’s “basically unimaginable for (Musk) to not proceed important content material moderation.”
If that isn’t sufficient, there’s a purpose why Musk primarily financed his buy of Twitter with loans somewhat than shopping for it himself. Most of his wealth is tied up in Tesla and SpaceX inventory—and if he isn’t cautious, his Twitter gambit might price him the whole lot.
It’s true that Musk has mentioned, “I don’t care concerning the economics in any respect.” However even because the richest man on earth, he has to care about them. He has a present estimated web price of $220 billion, however that’s not $220 billion in money sitting in a financial institution vault — it’s largely tied up in his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.
Thus to cowl massive Twitter losses, he must unload extra of his inventory yearly. This is able to be painful in financial phrases however extra so when it comes to energy: Finally he would get right into a state of affairs wherein he might lose management of the businesses, Tesla particularly.
To this, I’d add that if the banks who loaned him $13 billion of the acquisition value get nervous about how Musk is working Twitter, they’ve each proper to name these loans in.
All issues thought of, Schwarz concludes—and rightly—that Musk has painted himself right into a nook. As Schwarz places it, Musk’s “limitless paeans to free speech” have made him the darling of the suitable—particularly MAGA World. Nonetheless, Schwarz believes that when it turns into obvious that Musk received’t—or somewhat, can’t—open the floodgates, “the sense of betrayal amongst Musk’s super-fans will explode with the drive of a supernova.” The left already doesn’t belief Musk given his previous bloviating about free speech. If Schwarz is correct, Musk could also be about to be left on an island.
This, women and gents, is why we on the left shouldn’t fear about what Twitter will seem like now that Musk has his paws on it. I suspected this spring that he was going to study he can’t do the whole lot he needs simply because he’s a billionaire. And identical to one other narcissistic billionaire that all of us like to hate, that lesson goes to be actually painful. That’s purpose sufficient to remain on Twitter—the Schadenfreude of watching that lesson unfold.