Musk says he may not “actually be able to” buy Twitter, he is motivated by its public interest value, it should open source its algorithm, and he has a Plan B
Utopian good—with another six architectural and business model reforms. Let me run the place in my spare time from finding, funding, and growing Deep Tech breakthroughs. https://twitter.com/... Kurt Wagner / @kurtwagner8 : “In my view, Twitter should match the laws of the country.” - Elon Musk on how Twitter should handle user speech. Said the algorithm code should all be public. Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : God, I wish I could write like @matt_levine https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/... Joshua Topolsky / @joshuatopolsky : A deliciously fun read https://www.bloomberg.com/... @business : BREAKING: Elon Musk says he's “not sure that I will actually be able to” acquire Twitter in his first public comments about the takeover offer https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/... Decrypt / @decryptmedia : “It takes some pretty impressive mental gymnastics to associate any type of ‘freedom’ with the richest man in the world initiating a hostile takeover,” says @ummjackson, co-creator of Dogecoin. https://decrypt.co/... https://twitter.com/... Max Kennerly / @maxkennerly : The one consistent thing through Elon Musk's temper tantrum has been his total inability to grasp the basics of how social media works. It is, for example, 100% “legal” to use the reply function to spam everyone. Users get banned for it because of Twitter's Terms of Service. https://twitter.com/... NickStevens Graphics / @nick_stevens_gr : Elon Musk's Twitter takeover could undo years of progress https://techcrunch.com/... via @techcrunch “Twitter has a beautiful culture of hilarious constructive criticism, and I saw that go silent because of his minions attacking employees,” Charles Arthur / @charlesarthur : Hearing Elon say Twitter should open source its algorithm and looking forward to Tesla doing the same for its AutoPilot software Taylor Hatmaker / @tayhatmaker : elon musk log off challenge https://techcrunch.com/... Taylor Hatmaker / @tayhatmaker : I wrote about how Elon Musk could undo a lot of Twitter's recent progress on serious platform problems like misinformation and harassment. Content moderation isn't rocket science but it isn't what he's making it out to be, either. https://techcrunch.com/... Dan Primack / @danprimack : Elon Musk gives Twitter reasons to reject his bid https://www.axios.com/... Michael Gartenberg / @gartenberg : Perhaps he should buy Clubhouse? He can have a platform for rambling, a16z makes a buck or two and the rest of us can ignore all three. https://techcrunch.com/... Charles Arthur / @charlesarthur : 🙄 of course there's absolutely no way this won't be gamed by the people who have the most to gain from gaming the algorithm https://twitter.com/... Alex Weprin / @alexweprin : Elon Musk says he has a “Plan B” if Twitter's board rejects his takeover offer. Pitches Twitter as an open-source social network with minimal censorship. The details: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ ... Lance Ulanoff / @lanceulanoff : Why do people think “Open Source” is the answer to everything? https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ ... @andyjayhawk : Musk has said he felt “coerced” into settling with the SEC over his “funding secured” tweet, but has yet to provide any evidence to refute the SEC's findings that funding was actually not secured. https://twitter.com/... @byyourlogic : Twitter takeover stuff made me think of this again. this story really died a prolonged death https://www.theverge.com/... Lisa Abramowicz / @lisaabramowicz1 : Elon Musk says his bid for Twitter is intended to create “an inclusive arena for free speech,” not as a way to make money. “I don't care about the economics at all.” “I could technically afford,” although he adds he doesn't know whether he'll be able to. https://www.bloomberg.com/... Theo Priestley / @tprstly : And there's the dump https://twitter.com/... Ryan Sarver / @rsarver : I love the *idea* of @elonmusk buying twitter. But I fear he's spent about as much time thinking through the really complex challenges of how to fix it as most people do their fantasy football lineup. @richerd : If Elon' offer to buy Twitter is rejected. The next logical move is to create a DAO and attempt to buy Twitter ourselves. We can call it the Titter DAO as homage (for the culture of course) Marc Andreessen / @pmarca : Elon must not be allowed to impose his refusal to censor us on us. Matt Blaze / @mattblaze : I'm sure the erratic billionaire guy will mature and grow in to it once the deal is settled. Jay Graber / @arcalinea : Power changes hands many times across centuries. It's been a little over a decade since online social networks were created. We have to take the long view and think, “what if someone bad takes this over,” and build more resilient systems. Nick Dobos / @nickadobos : How do you simultaneously open source the algorithm and remove all bots? Won't the bots just get better? Proof of Stake? Nick Dobos / @nickadobos : Least surprising TED talk ever lol Nicholas Weaver / @ncweaver : Gee, I wonder if this is just a pump & dump scheme to try to make his buy-a-board-seat purchase less incredibly dumb... https://twitter.com/... Joe Rogan / @joerogan : Praise Odin for Elon Musk. https://www.instagram.com/... Ella Dawson / @brosandprose : Are we really asking Elon Musk how he's ~so good~ at Twitter, instead of asking about the out of control racial and gender discrimination at Tesla under his leadership? Or his tweets comparing Trudeau to Hitler? Or his avoidance of COVID safety regulations at his factories? Jordan Belfort / @wolfofwallst : Elon Musk Ted Talk — he just called the SEC a bunch of bastards! Classic! Joe Pompliano / @joepompliano : Elon is speaking about Twitter at TED. He says he doesn't “have all the answers” but that the algorithm should be open-sourced. He wants to limit spam & his main objective is to defend free speech. He also says it's not about money. “I don't care about the economics at all.” https://twitter.com/... Brij Singh / @brij : Twitter board has execs from salesforce and silverlake. They will get competitive offers. I wonder what made Musk go all “barbarians at the gate” with his low ball offer. Raise the offer and get all the employees to root for you! https://www.theinformation.com/ ... @samidh : Effective moderation is not inherently in conflict with free speech. It is required for people to feel free to speak. Anyone who doesn't get this has a high school stoner level grasp of societal issues and has never spent 5 min working on trust & safety. https://www.bloomberg.com/... @lizrummy : He has not thought about the implementation before this moment https://twitter.com/... Eric Newcomer / @ericnewcomer : I mean Donald Trump named his social media company “Truth Social.” Reassuring to hear they're both so obsessed with truth https://twitter.com/... Ryan Whitwam / @ryanwhitwam : It's pretty telling that every right-wing asshole account is cheering for the richest man in the world as he tries to buy a website in the name of “free speech.” Yes, the same people who are doing book bans and restricting what teachers can say. Casey Newton / @caseynewton : I honestly would have bet money that Elon Musk ended that by saying “Thank you for coming to my TED talk” Kurt Wagner / @kurtwagner8 : TED talk is over. I think the biggest takeaway here is that despite Musk loudly claiming he wants to buy Twitter because of free speech issues, most of the things he mentioned he would do wrt policing speech felt like things Twitter already does. Clear there isn't a master plan https://twitter.com/... Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : @elonmusk Also not sure how Twitter stays up and running in a 0% tech unemployment economy when he continuously insults the employee base. A question for enterprising reporters: does accepting a tender to go private trigger accelerated vesting of RSUs? If so... swoosh out the door. Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : As I said a few weeks ago, Elon does not want “free speech” or “no moderation” on Twitter. He just wants *different* moderation. https://twitter.com/... @pt : This is just a specific case of the general: trust in institutions is good, actually. That's a good reason to algorithmically discourage the grifters who monetize erosion of trust in institutions on mainstream apps, not to see their grift as a “free speech” issue. https://twitter.com/... Karl Bode / @karlbode : very large chance it's all a big, dumb distraction https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/... Dan Primack / @danprimack : Tend to agree with this. That said, Facebook is controlled by a single person. It's publicly traded, but one man controls the vote. https://twitter.com/... Kara Swisher / @karaswisher : Btw the TED audience is the perfect place for Elon to unload. They love being there in the room and they will be friendly. Elon can certainly handle tough questions, but with little pushback this is the interview equivalent of a high five. That said, perfect timing! https://twitter.com/... James Temple / @jtemple : It's especially impressive that his most concrete proposal (beyond a misogynistic name change) is a product already in the works. https://twitter.com/... Julia Fawal / @juliafawal : “I'm not saying I have all the answers here” says @elonmusk at #TED2022 in response to very basic questions about “free speech” & what he wants to change at Twitter. He says he'll add an edit button, but has no answer on how to manage it. He's got no answers to these softball Qs.
The VergeMia Sato
Context & Ripple Effects
The proposal puts ownership, speech rules, and algorithmic transparency into the same debate. Related coverage shows Twitter had built a record of resisting subpoenas that could identify users, while commentators warned that a Musk takeover could reverse progress on moderation, misinformation, and harassment.
Musk’s stated rationale also overlaps with Twitter’s bot-account dispute: the company’s CEO later described human reviews supporting its spam estimate, while Musk separately framed open-sourcing, anti-bot measures, and human authentication as a combined agenda.
First-order effects
Twitter faces immediate takeover uncertainty as Musk ties a possible acquisition to changes in its algorithm disclosure and approach to user speech.
Twitter’s existing privacy and moderation posture becomes a central test of Musk’s public-interest case, rather than a background operational policy.
Second-order effects
Twitter’s spam-account methodology gains greater strategic weight because it bears directly on Musk’s anti-bot rationale and on trust in the platform’s reporting.
An open-source algorithm commitment would shift scrutiny toward how Twitter’s ranking choices translate stated speech rules into distribution and monetization decisions.
Third-order effects
If ownership and policy control move together, platform governance may become more directly shaped by a controlling owner’s transparency and speech agenda rather than Twitter’s prior institutional practices.
The subsequent deboosting and demonetization policy illustrates how changes framed around speech can also alter the economic reach of particular categories of posts.
The trend: Social-platform ownership battles are increasingly being argued as contests over the visibility of ranking systems, spam enforcement, and the rules governing speech.
Watching Elon say that you should be allowed to say anything ‘legal’ online, which is what everyone says until they discover how social networks work https://livestream.com/...
I've now been asked multiple times for my take on Elon's offer for Twitter. So fine, this is what I think about that. I will assume the takeover succeeds, and he takes Twitter private. (I have little knowledge/insight into how actual takeover battles work or play out) (long 🧵)
The reason a platform as important as Twitter should be a protocol is that someone buying the company, or any other crazy thing that could happen over the long course of history, shouldn't disrupt this essential tool for human connection and social sense-making.
@ScottNover The SEC consent decree will remain in place, whoever owns Twitter, unless and until the judge rules otherwise. Musk plainly hates that fact.
It's shocking that Elon has such a childish view of what has to happen every day just to make social media usable. He's spectacularly poorly prepared for this. Reminder: there are 3-5 orders of magnitude more moderation 99% of users agree with than the hard political calls. https…
Censorship is bad enough, but the coordination between social media companies, the media, and the government has been downright sinister. Hopeful that @elonmusk can fix this.
Asked if funding is secured, @elonmusk says “I can do it if possible” and I feel like this perfectly circular response is something that I will be borrowing a lot going forward. Editor: Can you get it to me by Tuesday? Me: “I can do it if possible.”
Musk is talking about “his obsession with truth” on stage right now. Four years ago, he tried to get me to write that a British cave rescuer in Thailand was a “child rapist” because of false information fed to him by a fake private investigator.
In his Ted talk, @elonmusk is talking about letting Twitter run similarly to the blockchain where the algorithms are controlled by the community rather than a handful of people writing and enforcing the rules.
“In my view, Twitter should match the laws of the country.” - Elon Musk on how Twitter should handle user speech. Said the algorithm code should all be public.
BREAKING: Elon Musk says he's “not sure that I will actually be able to” acquire Twitter in his first public comments about the takeover offer https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Perhaps he should buy Clubhouse? He can have a platform for rambling, a16z makes a buck or two and the rest of us can ignore all three. https://techcrunch.com/...
I wrote about how Elon Musk could undo a lot of Twitter's recent progress on serious platform problems like misinformation and harassment. Content moderation isn't rocket science but it isn't what he's making it out to be, either. https://techcrunch.com/...
“It takes some pretty impressive mental gymnastics to associate any type of ‘freedom’ with the richest man in the world initiating a hostile takeover,” says @ummjackson, co-creator of Dogecoin. https://decrypt.co/... https://twitter.com/...
The one consistent thing through Elon Musk's temper tantrum has been his total inability to grasp the basics of how social media works. It is, for example, 100% “legal” to use the reply function to spam everyone. Users get banned for it because of Twitter's Terms of Service. http…
Elon Musk's Twitter takeover could undo years of progress https://techcrunch.com/... via @techcrunch “Twitter has a beautiful culture of hilarious constructive criticism, and I saw that go silent because of his minions attacking employees,”
Elon Musk says he has a “Plan B” if Twitter's board rejects his takeover offer. Pitches Twitter as an open-source social network with minimal censorship. The details: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ ...
Musk has said he felt “coerced” into settling with the SEC over his “funding secured” tweet, but has yet to provide any evidence to refute the SEC's findings that funding was actually not secured. https://twitter.com/...
Elon Musk says his bid for Twitter is intended to create “an inclusive arena for free speech,” not as a way to make money. “I don't care about the economics at all.” “I could technically afford,” although he adds he doesn't know whether he'll be able to. https://www.bloomberg.com…
I love the *idea* of @elonmusk buying twitter. But I fear he's spent about as much time thinking through the really complex challenges of how to fix it as most people do their fantasy football lineup.
If Elon' offer to buy Twitter is rejected. The next logical move is to create a DAO and attempt to buy Twitter ourselves. We can call it the Titter DAO as homage (for the culture of course)
Power changes hands many times across centuries. It's been a little over a decade since online social networks were created. We have to take the long view and think, “what if someone bad takes this over,” and build more resilient systems.
Are we really asking Elon Musk how he's ~so good~ at Twitter, instead of asking about the out of control racial and gender discrimination at Tesla under his leadership? Or his tweets comparing Trudeau to Hitler? Or his avoidance of COVID safety regulations at his factories?
Elon is speaking about Twitter at TED. He says he doesn't “have all the answers” but that the algorithm should be open-sourced. He wants to limit spam & his main objective is to defend free speech. He also says it's not about money. “I don't care about the economics at all.” http…
Twitter board has execs from salesforce and silverlake. They will get competitive offers. I wonder what made Musk go all “barbarians at the gate” with his low ball offer. Raise the offer and get all the employees to root for you! https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
Effective moderation is not inherently in conflict with free speech. It is required for people to feel free to speak. Anyone who doesn't get this has a high school stoner level grasp of societal issues and has never spent 5 min working on trust & safety. https://www.bloomberg.com…
It's pretty telling that every right-wing asshole account is cheering for the richest man in the world as he tries to buy a website in the name of “free speech.” Yes, the same people who are doing book bans and restricting what teachers can say.
TED talk is over. I think the biggest takeaway here is that despite Musk loudly claiming he wants to buy Twitter because of free speech issues, most of the things he mentioned he would do wrt policing speech felt like things Twitter already does. Clear there isn't a master plan h…
@elonmusk Also not sure how Twitter stays up and running in a 0% tech unemployment economy when he continuously insults the employee base. A question for enterprising reporters: does accepting a tender to go private trigger accelerated vesting of RSUs? If so... swoosh out the doo…
As I said a few weeks ago, Elon does not want “free speech” or “no moderation” on Twitter. He just wants *different* moderation. https://twitter.com/...
This is just a specific case of the general: trust in institutions is good, actually. That's a good reason to algorithmically discourage the grifters who monetize erosion of trust in institutions on mainstream apps, not to see their grift as a “free speech” issue. https://twitter…
Tend to agree with this. That said, Facebook is controlled by a single person. It's publicly traded, but one man controls the vote. https://twitter.com/...
Btw the TED audience is the perfect place for Elon to unload. They love being there in the room and they will be friendly. Elon can certainly handle tough questions, but with little pushback this is the interview equivalent of a high five. That said, perfect timing! https://twitt…
It's especially impressive that his most concrete proposal (beyond a misogynistic name change) is a product already in the works. https://twitter.com/...
“I'm not saying I have all the answers here” says @elonmusk at #TED2022 in response to very basic questions about “free speech” & what he wants to change at Twitter. He says he'll add an edit button, but has no answer on how to manage it. He's got no answers to these softball Qs.