Leah Feiger: I can not wait to listen to about all of that. However let’s begin with Elon Musk. If I used to be to hint again the top of Twitter, it will clearly begin with him. David, why did Musk purchase Twitter? Take us again to that point.
David Gilbert: I’ve a sense he was interested by shopping for Twitter for some time. He had been one of many primary characters on Twitter for years and had at all times been very vocal in his opinions and the type of content material that he posted there. However from 2020 onwards, as soon as Donald Trump received kicked off the platform and there was a significant shutdown on content material in relation to Covid-19 and the vaccines, he turned more and more outraged at what he noticed as this over-censorious factor the place he felt that folks of a sure viewpoint had been being silenced on the platform. After all, that was one thing that not solely Musk had, however quite a lot of Conservatives felt as properly, that they had been being silenced. It was effervescent alongside for some time, the concept that he was going to purchase it. He was being urged on by quite a lot of his supporters, and he has quite a lot of supporters, to say that he should purchase it, he ought to take it over and switch it into their utopian social media platform. In early 2022, he did. He determined to desk a bid of $44 billion. In a short time, he determined then to show round and say, “No, truly I do not need to do this.”
[Archival audio clip]: You then modified your thoughts once more and determined to purchase it. Did you do that-
Elon Musk [Archival audio clip]: Nicely, I type of needed to.
[Archival audio clip]: Proper. Did you do this since you thought {that a} courtroom would make you do this?
Elon Musk [Archival audio clip]: Sure.
[Archival audio clip]: Proper.
Elon Musk [Archival audio clip]: Sure, that’s the reason.
Leah Feiger: I at all times overlook that. I at all times overlook that and I find it irresistible a lot.
David Gilbert: He does not actually remind folks of it an excessive amount of. It lastly went by and Musk took over, and really rapidly made modifications. I am undecided, at that time, Makena, do you suppose that he actually had a imaginative and prescient in thoughts for what his model of Twitter was going to appear to be?
Makena Kelly: No, I do not suppose it was a imaginative and prescient greater than it was a vengeance.
David Gilbert: Yeah.
Makena Kelly: For those who look at the moment, it is across the similar time that regulators, even simply the information, there’s extra skepticism about what it’s that Elon Musk is doing. He is not this messiah character who’s going to hold us into some lovely progressive world the place all of us drive autonomous autos and have photo voltaic panels on our homes. Folks had been beginning to be much more vital of him. Twitter is an area the place you’ve got information makers, style makers, essential folks on this platform who’re utilizing it day-after-day and that is the place you possibly can actually drive quite a lot of dialog. I really feel like Elon Musk, even when it wasn’t front-of-mind, I feel he at the least knew subconsciously that having some type of energy over this platform could be useful to him and his model.