As Musk Secures Funds to Buy Twitter Outright, Here Are 2 of the Changes He'd Make to the Platform
On the same day he listed a filing indicating he had secured the funds for his bid to buy Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk hinted at some of the changes he would make to the platform.
The first change Musk said he would make had to do with “bots,” automated accounts not run by actual humans.
“If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!” Musk wrote in a tweet on Thursday.
If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
Musk suggested he would not stop there, either, but would take steps to indicate which accounts on Twitter were actually run by humans.
And authenticate all real humans
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
These are just a couple of the many suggestions Musk has made regarding potential changes at Twitter. According to The Daily Wire, Musk discussed the subject in a TED talk earlier this month.
The billionaire took particular issue with Twitter’s algorithms in regard to examining tweets. He said the company needs to stop engaging in “behind the scenes manipulation.”
Musk said he felt Twitter’s algorithms were “quite dangerous” because they promoted certain pieces of content over others without a clear explanation, The Daily Wire reported.
In addition, he called on the platform to give users the benefit of the doubt and err on the side of inaction when deciding whether to remove a tweet.
Also on Thursday, Musk indicated in a regulatory filing that he had “lined up” the $46.5 billion to fund his purchase offer, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Musk said he had secured over $25 billion in debt commitments from “a group of banks led by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp. and Barclays.” Meanwhile, he would provide $21 billion himself in equity.
The collateral Musk provided for bank loans in the filing was a whopping $62.5 billion of his Tesla stock, representing a third of his stake in the company.
Of course, there is no guarantee that Twitter would accept Musk’s proposal. Twitter’s board has already taken steps to make a Musk takeover more difficult.
With that said, Musk’s filing showed that his bid to buy Twitter is more than talk.
Meanwhile, Musk’s other ventures have seen immense recent success. According to the UK’s Daily Mail, Tesla hit a trio of milestones during the first quarter of 2022 that would benefit Musk directly.
As compensation for reaching the performance goals, Musk was reportedly set to receive stock options that would allow him to buy 8.4 million Tesla shares for around $70 each — a huge discount from a per-share price that has spent most of April north of $1,000.
Musk could add billions to his already significant cash holdings if he were to exercise those shares and then sell them at an average price of $1,000 each.
I wonder what he’d do with the money?
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