Elon Musk and Twitter: a match made in hell

On one level, Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter makes perfect sense. He’s a purchasing a social media platform that is, at its most basic, a cesspool of self-absorbed celebs and politicos, their groupies, and a host of drama junkies addicted to conflict.

Musk falls squarely into the first category.

He purchased Twitter for $44 billion, and appears certain to loosen its controls. As a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist, he claimed via tweet to be “against censorship that goes beyond the law.” This from a man who was fined $20 million by the SEC for, um, going beyond the law while using Twitter.

His response to being so chastened?

“Worth it.”

Translation: Musk isn’t one who likes to follow the rules. Like a lot of wealthy people, he uses his money as a free pass to flout them when they’re not to his liking. But in an ideal world (for him), he’d prefer to make his own. That’s why he bought Twitter. He didn’t like rules that he felt constrained him, so he decided to take over the company and change them.

Vanity project

Making your own rules can work well when you’re innovating, and Musk has made a fortune doing just that. But his purchase of Twitter is neither innovative nor good business. It’s more of a vanity project. He all but admitted as much, saying his interest in the platform “is not a way to make money.” He’s like the kid on the playground who takes his ball and goes home… but since the ball didn’t belong to him, he had to buy it first.

Twitter isn’t a money-maker even now. It’s only turned a profit twice since 2013 — in 2018 and again the following year. It supposedly has 217 million monthly active users, which would be just about 7% the size of Facebook’s user based and only about half the number who use Pinterest. But it may not even have that many: After Musk bought the company, it admitted to overstating the number of monetizable accounts by double-counting some users.

Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter isn't good business. It's a vanity project for a wealthy control freak who didn't like the social media site's rules, so he bought it in order to change them.

The platform makes most of its money from ads: $1.41 billion of its $1.57 in profits during the fourth quarter of 2021. But Musk apparently wants to make Twitter less reliant on advertisers by focusing on subscriptions instead. He’s driven by the idea that this would reduce “the power of corporations to dictate policy” — which would, of course, enhance his own power to make his own rules.

Musk is well known as an extreme micromanager (in other words, a control freak). When it comes to business, he’s an authoritarian: It’s his way or the highway, and he’s got the money to impose his will on those who disagree — hardly a recipe for free speech and open dialogue.

Subscription fantasy

It’s a good thing he’s not in it for the money, because relying on subscriptions to keep Twitter viable is a flat-out stupid idea.

I know what I’m talking about.

I used to work in the newspaper business. When newspapers were thriving, they relied on advertising for the bulk of their revenue: $49.3 billion in 2006 compared with about $11 billion from subscriptions, according to the Pew Research Center. By 2020, subscriptions, however, were driving more revenue than ads, which on the surface would seem auspicious for Musk’s idea. But the numbers don’t bear that out: In fact, subscription revenues have remained flat and have only surpassed ad money because the bottom dropped out of advertising (just $8.8 billion in 2020).

Newspapers are in dire straits. The same thing would almost certainly happen to Twitter.

The platform currently has a premium subscription service, and Musk proposes making it more popular by lowering the price from $3 a month to $2.

This won’t work, either. Social media sites aren’t streaming video; they’re more like newspapers, which have been going the opposite direction just to stay afloat: raising prices per copy. If Twitter lowers its subscription price from $3 to $2, it will take 1.5 times as many subscribers just to maintain current revenue levels.

And there are other problems with lowering the price, too. Ask most authors whether discounting their Kindle books to 99 cents has made them a ton of money, and you’ll probably hear the same answer from most of them: an emphatic no.

It sure hasn’t worked for me.

That’s because consumers know you get what you pay for. If you’re not charging much, your product must not be worth much: in other words, “low prices equal low quality.” Why waste your money?

Playground for bullies

Most of us don’t have money to waste, but Musk does, which is why buying Twitter isn’t a big deal to him.

But it should be to users.

Musk’s commitment to free speech might seem laudable at first — a way to lift constraints on dialogue so more voices can be heard. But the practical effect of unrestrained free speech is exactly the opposite: It amplifies some voices and effectively mutes others. Bullies silence their victims. The rich (like Musk) drown out the poor.

This has always been the case to some extent on Twitter, bifurcated as it is between luminaries and their followers. But with the guardrails removed, the “Wild West” nature of the platform will become even more pronounced.

Far from encouraging a more democratic approach, Musk’s absolutist approach to free speech is an authoritarian model that will enable bullies and their sycophants. If you doubt this, check out the reaction of users to the news of Musk’s purchase: Nutcase conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene gained more than 100,000 followers in the course of a week, while demagogue Texas Senator Ted Cruz added 61,000.

Enough is enough

Before you know it, Twitter could look more like Donald Trump’s disastrous right-wing Truth Social platform than it will a forum for civilized discussion. Most right-wingers only become particularly active online if there are left-wingers around to bash, and if Musk chases off the opposition, he may be left with a virtual ghost town on his hands.

The first phase of that transformation may already have begun: After news broke of Musk’s purchase, a number of Twitter users reportedly deactivated their accounts. Twitter insisted these “fluctuations in follower counts” were “organic,” but what would you expect the company to say? Remember, this is the same company that, on the same day, admitted to double-counting some monetizable accounts.

I can confirm at least one of those, however: myself.

I’ve never liked Twitter, but I maintained a nominal presence there just in case I could figure out how to promote my writing business on the platform. No more. I won’t support a platform that facilitates bullying on the pretext of promoting free speech. Elon Musk can have his vanity project. But he can’t have me.

Stephen H. Provost has more than 30 years of experience as a journalist and has written more than 40 books, including “Media Meltdown: In the Age of Trump,” focusing on the transformation and decline of journalism during the Trump years. All his works are available on Amazon.