If billionaire Elon Musk takes over Twitter: Poison pill?

Twitter has just put a ‘poison pill’ recipe to prevent a takeover offer from Elon Musk. Here’s how it works

On April 14, Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter outright in a deal valuing the company at $43 billion, a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows. .

“Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it,” Musk said in a letter to Twitter president Bret Taylor. Musk said his $54.20-per-share offer was his “best and last.”

Twitter said it received “an unsolicited, non-binding proposal from Elon Musk to repurchase all of the company’s outstanding common stock” and will “carefully review the proposal to determine if the company’s common stock is outstanding.” directing action that they believe is in the best interest of the company and all Twitter shareholders{.

Until April 16, Twitter used shareholder rights to prevent billionaire Elon Musk from increasing his stake and blocking his plan to buy Twitter outright for $43 billion. Here, Twitter has moved to use a “poison pill” – a defense against hostile takeovers of the company – to prevent Tesla CEO Elon Musk from raising his stake above 15%, thereby blocking Mr. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.

A “poison pill” – another name for a shareholder rights plan – is a measure to prevent a shareholder from increasing his shares beyond a certain limit, by allowing other shareholders to buy More stock at lower price. This measure is often used by businesses to defend against hostile takeover plans or to have more time to consider options.

Twitter announced it would use the tactic after unanimous approval from the board, and again called Musk’s suggestions “an unsolicited, non-binding proposition.”

Elon Musk will “meet a world of pain” if he buys Twitter.

Sharing more about this issue, recently, Former Reddit CEO Yishan Wong said that Elon Musk would “suffer a world of pain” if he bought Twitter, arguing that the Tesla CEO did not fully understand the challenges of being a CEO. censor content and enforce free speech on the internet.

“Elon won’t fix some problems. I’m absolutely certain of this. He doesn’t know what he’s in for,” Wong said in a viral Twitter thread.

At the heart of this is Wong’s belief that Musk will not be able to truly uphold the “old Internet” ideals of free speech, because of the way the Internet works today. As the modern web has advanced to the point where anyone can post anything at any time, Wong argues, major platforms like Twitter will eventually be forced to censor.

“Censorship is inevitable on the major social media platforms. If you run one on a large enough scale, you’ll be COMPLETELY censored everything,” he said. “Not by governments, or even by ‘users’, but by the dominant dynamics of social media itself.”

It’s not politics, according to Wong, that determines those dynamics – although it is something both sides of the aisle tend to believe. Instead, he says it’s because innate ideas are “powerful and dangerous” and the big social media platforms are responsible for keeping people from completely losing control.

“And it’s not because certain ideas are good or bad, right or wrong. It’s all about operational problems that arise with humans who disagree in large numbers on technical platforms. number,” Wong continued.

Regardless of the exact reasoning behind Wong’s free speech debate, his bottom line is that running a social media network is hard — much harder than Musk could possibly be. confident today.

To illustrate this point, Wong went on to say that Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey’s extreme lifestyle can be the result of “the trauma and chronic stress” that accompanies a position like so.

“And the worst part, the part that will hurt ALL HUMANs, is this will distract from his duties at SpaceX and Tesla, because it doesn’t just suck up all his time and attention. , it WILL DAMAGE MY TOYS,” Wong continued.

The amount of data Elon Musk could access if he privatizes Twitter ‘is incomparable to anything that has ever existed’

Elon Musk’s plan to privatize Twitter has raised concerns among privacy experts and social media researchers, including a former Harvard professor who told the Washington Post that letting one person controlling a social platform “is a disaster” for user privacy.

Shoshana Zuboff, a former professor and author of “The Age of Surveillance Capital,” says huge ad revenue and the uncontrolled collection of data about user behavior that has transformed the media industry. social media, there is now an incredible wobble in the face of real-world events.

Because content on social media platforms can influence public opinion and lead to behavior change. She said the people who control the websites hold so much power, that leaving that power in the hands of a single person would be “inappropriate for democracy”.

“There are simply no checks and balances from any internal or external force,” Zuboff told The Washington Post.

If Musk takes ownership of Twitter, CEO Tesla will have near-complete control over an amount of user data that is “incomparable to anything that has ever existed, and allows interference with the integrity of personal conduct as well as the integrity of collective behavior,” Zuboff said.