Twitter Is Dead, Long Live the Portal

Leah Feiger: I can’t wait to hear about all of that. But let’s start with Elon Musk. If I was to trace back the end of Twitter, it would obviously start with him. David, why did Musk buy Twitter? Take us back to that time.

David Gilbert: I have a feeling he was thinking about buying Twitter for a while. He had been one of the main characters on Twitter for years, and had always been very vocal in his opinions and the kind of content that he posted there. But from 2020 onwards, once Donald Trump got kicked off the platform and there was a major shutdown on content in relation to COVID-19 and the vaccines, he became increasingly outraged at what he saw as this over-censorious thing where he felt that people of a certain viewpoint were being silenced on the platform. Of course, that was something that not only Musk had, but a lot of Conservatives felt as well, that they were being silenced. It was bubbling along for a while, the idea that he was going to buy it. He was being urged on by a lot of his supporters, and he has a lot of supporters, to say that he should buy it, he should take it over and turn it into their utopian social media platform. In early 2022, he did. He decided to table a bid of $44 billion. Very quickly, he decided then to turn around and say, “No, actually I don’t want to do that.”

[Archival audio clip]: Then you changed your mind again and decided to buy it. Did you do that-

Elon Musk [Archival audio clip]: Well, I kind of had to.

[Archival audio clip]: Right. Did you do that because you thought that a court would make you do that?

Elon Musk [Archival audio clip]: Yes.

[Archival audio clip]: Right.

Elon Musk [Archival audio clip]: Yes, that is the reason.

Leah Feiger: I always forget that. I always forget that and I love it so much.

David Gilbert: He doesn’t really remind people of it too much. It finally went through and Musk took over, and very quickly made changes. I’m not sure, at that point, Makena, do you think that he really had a vision in mind for what his version of Twitter was going to look like?

Makena Kelly: No, I don’t think it was a vision more than it was a vengeance.

David Gilbert: Yeah.

Makena Kelly: If you look at that time, it’s around the same time that regulators, even just the news, there’s more skepticism about what it is that Elon Musk is doing. He’s not this messiah character who’s going to carry us into some beautiful progressive world where we all drive autonomous vehicles and have solar panels on our houses. People were starting to be a lot more critical of him. Twitter is a space where you have news makers, taste makers, very important people on this platform who are using it every day and that’s where you can really drive a lot of conversation. I feel like Elon Musk, even if it wasn’t front-of-mind, I think he at least knew subconsciously that having some kind of power over this platform would be helpful to him and his brand.