Bully Pulpit. The real reason Musk bought Twitter?

[usonian]

Last edited Tue Apr 26, 2022, 06:01 PM - Edit history (1)

https://om.co/2022/04/25/why-elon-is-buying-twitter/
Bully Pulpit
Om Malik

According to a story published in the New York Times, then-president Theodore Roosevelt said: “I suppose my critics will call that preaching, but I have got such a bully pulpit!” He had coined the term that would become commonplace over the next century. 
…
“Thanks to the Internet and the social web, everyone from companies to governments are acting like media entities and spreading their messages, bypassing the messengers – aka the media outlets. “I have written in the past.
 
Those with a bully pulpit no longer need a professional class of mediators. A perfect example of that was US President Donald Trump — who was elected and stayed in power through this “direct” pulpit. Despite the professional media’s best efforts to expose him, the President managed to serve out his full term. His power started to wane only after the President got muted on the social platforms. The lesson: social media platforms can take away anyone’s bully pulpit. 

Musk is too intelligent to care about politics. After all, politicians are fungible, but billions are forever. Elon’s desire to buy Twitter has nothing to do with free speech and some well-meaning concepts of cleaning up the platform or making the company efficient and innovative. However, all those would be nice. 

Instead, buying Twitter ensures that he is never locked out from the platform that gives him the bully pulpit and power. His ability to put together a $46 billion offer for Twitter faster than a short-order cook whips up breakfast is quite impressive and only reinforces my point — the man needs the megaphone to achieve his final goals.  …
Musk’s power comes from his millions of followers (including the machine-made followers who have helped spread Musk’s digital musk.) He needs them for the only thing he has to sell: the future. Elon doesn’t need to invent anything — he needs to believe in something and then get people to buy that. 

Whether it is electric vehicles, flying and landing rockets, setting up space colonies, humanoids, cryptocurrencies with dog images, doing brain implants, or boring tunnels to travel underground — Musk needs to sell the future loudly, garishly, and without the interference of the malcontent naysayers in media and old industries. It needs extraordinary conviction to get the Germans and the Japanese to buy a Tesla. It needs special chutzpah to get rockets flying and landing.

Musk loves to hunt down naysayers. Does anyone remember how he got into a war of words with The New York Times over Tesla’s Model-S car review? In 2014. He called it a “fake review.” Since then, the naysayers have been met with typhoon-strength tweetstorms.

Fast forward to today — he is not just going to be fighting about a car review, and it is about everything he is backing. He needs his bully pulpit to have enough people believe in his way of thinking so that hundreds of millions flow into his projects and thus enable his vision of the future. 

It seems behind every tweet, there is an agenda. 

The Atlantic seems to think it's about free speech.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/elon-musk-twitter-free-speech/629673/

OPINION
Given Elon's somewhat dictatorial management style (he operated his plant during the covid shutdown), I don't think he gives a flying fickle finger of fate about free speech EXCEPT HIS.

A typical attitude these days -- Freedom for my body, not yours, and so on.

Besides, regulators all over the world (EU first) are coming after social media platforms in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of way. He'll get in all kinds of hot water with his imperious attitude.

And isn't that what this is all about?
Owning and controlling EVERYTHING?
/OPINION


By the way, found this today FYI
Free speech seems to be a one-way street for Elon.
Different set of rules for the wealthy, again.
https://www.mediaite.com/tech/lawrence-fossi-speaks-out-on-elon-musk/
‘Extreme Enemy of Free Speech’: Tesla Critic Says Elon Musk Bullied Him Off Twitter in 2018 By Calling His Boss and Threatening to Sue

“I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,” Elon Musk tweeted on April 25, 2022 after the company’s board accepted his offer to buy the platform for $44 billion.

But on July 23, 2018, he was singing – or in this case, ringing – a different tune.

Lawrence Fossi was working as a portfolio manager in Manhattan at the time. That Monday would have been an otherwise unremarkable day at the office, but for a phone call from an irate – and litigious – Elon Musk.

A colleague relayed the billionaire’s message.

“Elon Musk says that you’re a very bad person and you’re writing bad things about him,” Fossi recalled the colleague explaining. “He’s going to have to sue you and he’s going to have to drag our boss into it.”

Fossi was incredulous, but quickly realized this was no office prank. The CEO of Tesla Motors had actually called his office and threatened to make his life miserable by threatening litigation.

His offense?

He criticized Musk online.

[Hoyt]

1. As long as millions of us can post in disagreement/opposition on Twitter,

I’m fine with that.

If that changes, it would be an issue.

[rockfordfile]

4. That's not how that works. Staying on twitter gives support to the un-American pos

So you support what his racist car company did to that black employee? By staying on twitter that's owned by Musk you support that.

[Hoyt]

5. If you feel like that, fine. I'd rather oppose racists rubes on Twitter.

[NewHendoLib]

2. my view on it all - fuck twitter. and facebook. and musk. and zuckerasshole.

[usonian]

3. All these anti-social media sites are easy to kill. If we all take one simple step.

They make money on ads. Nothing else.

I use adblockers, and since ads are the cause of basically ALL the poisons of the internet, that would fix it overnight if everyone used one.

Please read "Surveillance Capitalism"

Very short explanation: Advertising made Quantity trounce quality. All the toxic behavior of major internet sites ("hate makes clicks" and so on.) is due to the need for quantity.

And why server farms the size of Delaware?

Because of ad surveillance profiling of users. Craigslist used to run on a dinky computer in Craig's closet. Without ad surveillance, vastly less computer power is needed.

THAT said, I use ZERO (anti)social media, but I use DU as a link aggregator for general news and Hacker News as a link aggregator for tech news. I read only what I *want* to see.

I try not to bitch without proposing a cure, and this is real simple.

(Naturally, people are reluctant to do anything that's not "default" ) It's simple but not easy to sell. Yet.

[usonian]

6. Updated the OP. Added mediaite article on his thin skin for criticism.

It's about HIS free speech, not about anyone else's.

And I note once again that regulators, starting with EU, are going after social media in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of way.

They have managed to piss off everyone, especially in this time of "everyone's a victim of something or other".

Especially bad for someone with a short fuse. (if any)