OP/ED: Roe v Wade

ELON MUSK ACQUIRES TWITTER

By Jakob Nakanaynay

Twitter’s Board of Directors voted unanimously to accept an offer by Tesla CEO Elon Musk for a $44 billion cash buyout of the company On Monday, April 25.

The acquisition comes after weeks of buildup, a Security Exchange and Commision (SEC) violation and hesitancy from Twitter’s board. It could also be the start of massive changes to the platform, from reduced censorship to the addition of an edit button and greater transparency.

As specified by the deal, Musk is buying the entire company, $54.20 a share, to take Twitter private. Musk has publicly stated the deal is not economic, but rather to promote free speech on the platform, being a frequent user with a following of over 91 million.

SEC forms archives show Musk, on an almost daily basis, bought millions of shares of Twitter stock from Jan. 31 through April 1. By March 14, he had surpassed 5 percent ownership of the company, forcing him to disclose information as per the SEC’s guidelines. By this point, Musk could have either filed a schedule 13G or 13D to the SEC. A 13G is a simpler form meant for passive investors (people who don’t have the intent of influencing or controlling the business they’re investing in). By contrast, a 13D is a longer form revealing more information meant for active investors.

On April 4, Musk filed a 13G revealing to the public he had a 9.2 percent stake in the company, thus making him the largest shareholder. The date this was issued was in violation of SEC guidelines; he was supposed to file within ten days of passing the 5 percent threshold (which would have been March 24) though it doesn’t seem Musk has received any punishment for doing so.

The next day, Musk amended the form to a 13D to reflect his intent for taking an active role in the company. According to the form, Musk owned 9.1 percent of Twitter at the time, with April 1 as the last specified date he had bought shares of Twitter.

The same day Musk amended the form, he was invited to join the Board of Directors set to take effect on April 9 and cap his ownership of the company at 14.9 percent, to which Musk accepted the offer. However, on the morning of the day Musk was set to join the board, he changed his mind.

“[The Board and I] were excited to collaborate and clear about the risks,” Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in a statement to the company which was also shared on his Twitter account. “Elon shared that same morning that he will no longer be joining the board. I believe this is for the best. We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our board or not.”

Five days later, Musk tweeted a link with his offer to buy Twitter.

“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk said in a letter to Chairman of the Board Bret Taylor.

In that same letter, Musk wrote his intention to buy 100 percent of Twitter, saying that the platform has incredible potential, but must go through transformations first.

The board, originally opposed to Musk’s attempt at a hostile takeover, deployed the “poison pill” tactic as a defense. Under a poison pill plan, if one shareholder (usually a hostile party) buys a large stake in the company, all other shareholders are given a massive discount to buy more shares, thus diluting the stake of the hostile party. However, the board, under pressure, eventually came around to Musk’s offer, accepting the deal on April 25.

The deal is still awaiting approval by Twitter shareholders and government regulators, though most analysts agree it will go through successfully.

While all the technical aspects of the acquisition were ongoing, Musk was actively communicating with his followers on the situation.

On March 24, he held a poll asking whether Twitter’s algorithm should be open source; on March 25 he held another poll asking if people believe Twitter rigorously adheres to the principle of free speech with the ominous words “the consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully”; then on April 4, he asked if Twitter should add an edit button.

Musk had been an outspoken critic of the platform as well.

On April 9, he quote-tweeted statistics on the top Twitter users stating, “Most of these ‘top’ accounts tweet rarely and post very little content. Is Twitter dying?” On April 27 he tweeted “Truth Social (terrible name) exists because Twitter censored free speech.”

Musk’s plans for Twitter can be summarized in the following points: decrease censorship to make it an open platform for free speech, increase transparency by making the algorithm open source, add an edit button and stop spam bots. Some users however, mostly on the left, have questioned what exactly Musk means by facilitating “free speech.” Following the Jan. 8 riots in 2021, Twitter had permanently banned the president at the time Donald Trump. Decreasing censorship may mean figures like Trump may be allowed back on the platform, though Trump specifically has stated he wishes to stay on Truth Social in an interview with Fox News. “The sale of Twitter to Elon Musk would be a victory for disinformation and the people who peddle it,” Angelo Caruson, president of progressive watchdog group Media Matters said in a statement. “Musk could unleash a wave of toxicity and harassment and undo Twitter’s efforts to increase quality engagement and make its platform safer for users.” Musk’s point on ending spam bots has also drawn criticism. College student Jack Sweeney created Twitter bots that used public flight data to determine when and where private jets of some famous billionaires, including Musk, had traveled to. This, despite Musk’s jet being registered under the FAA’s Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed (LADD) program to hide

PHUONG LAM | HAWKEYE his movements. It is still running under the username @ ElonJet.

“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its In an interview with Protocol, Sweeney revealed Musk potential to be the platform for free speech had sent a direct message asking Sweeney to stop for around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.” $5,000. Sweeney then countered by asking Musk for $50,000, to which Musk said “he’d think about it,” then didn’t make any subsequent replies. The suggestion to make Twitter’s algorithm open Elon Musk source has also been pointed out as flawed. An article ENTREPRENEUR by the Verge draws attention to the fact that Twitter doesn’t have a singular algorithm that can be pointed to that makes every decision for how content is provided or censored. Additionally, it runs on multiple AI models trained on vast amounts of user data and is constantly evolving. Someone looking for biases couldn’t just find it in the code for the AI – the code would contain the instructions for creating the instructions for parsing through tweets. It’s like how a dictionary contains all the words necessary for writing a novel but doesn’t actually contain a novel within itself. Amidst some of the confusion and debate surrounding Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, MTHS senior Christopher Kelly remains cautious. “I do believe that Elon Musk only bought Twitter because he intends on making changes to it regarding free speech on the public platform, since it is not particularly a smart financial move from my perspective.” Kelly said. “I know that a good deal of Republicans and libertarians are frustrated with the supposed censorship that platforms like Twitter, and although Musk is an independent, making changes regarding censorship and banning of certain political figures is the only reason I can see for his purchase. I do wonder what form those changes will present themselves as, because I believe at least some things should never be said on social media. I also wonder if, in the future, Musk intends to make Twitter a publicly traded company again, and what effect that might have.” H