You gotta love Elon Musk, whether you’re a fan or not. Or at least give him the fist bump of respect for his – going there – elan. No one has that flair for shaking up the tech landscape quite like him, and one never quite knows what his next move will be, or why.

So, what’s with Musk’s focus on Twitter, be it as a majority shareholder or actual owner? At the end of the day, does it really matter?  Forest through the trees: every tech cabalist owns a media outlet: Apple has Apple News and Apple TV; Google has Google and YouTube, Meta has Facebook and Instagram; Amazon has The Washington Post. With Twitter, power influencer Musk now has his. Period.

The Twitterverse has gone wild since Musk announced his takeover plans, especially Twitter employees. OMG! He’s threatening to restore freedom of speech! Can you imagine??? Yet, “Several employees noted in internal messages that Musk, who considers himself to be a champion of free speech, has appeared to express disdain for the use of gender pronouns,” The Washington Post reported. Or is controversy the tool he uses to shine a light on hypocrisy? Hmmm….

The Twitter employees’ messages are almost as good as Tim Cook speaking in Washington recently, cautioning against antitrust legislation re the app store in particular, saying “We are deeply concerned about regulations that would undermine privacy and security in service of some other aim,” according to The Hill. Is he kidding? Apple, secure??? Privacy??? They hand over user data without even questioning the source. Talk about a something with your eyePhone (sic) nearby, and what’s the next ad you’re served?

 

Note to self: there’s an indication of how truly open and egalitarian the platform is, re the Twitter employee pushback. It’s their world, their rules, and thanks for adding to their userbase, until you’re dinged, and who knows if, just because you’ve been permanently banned, you’re not still counted as an ‘active user.’

“During a TED Talk…in Vancouver, Musk said he would err on the side of free speech. “I do think that we want to be just very reluctant to delete things and … just be very cautious with permanent bans,” he said, adding that he would prefer timeouts,” The Washington Post reported.

Heaven forfend that two sides of an issue are allowed to be aired.

The jury’s still out on how serious Musk truly is, especially since he offered a seemingly low-balled figure of $54.20 a share. $54.20, Gracie? 4.20 – a reference to marijuana – is a particularly favorite number of Musk’s.

Now, that’s elan.

Said Yahoo! Finance, Analyst on Musk’s Twitter offer: ‘No board in America is going to take that number.’ We’re sure he did not choose that number arbitrarily, and certainly managed to send the media into a tailspin, eh?

Again, elan.

Mark Cuban concluded that @elonmusk is fucking with the SEC.

And maybe with everyone else, too. Still, it was an inspired move, whether he truly plans to buy the company or not and a great lesson in how to ‘own’ a media company without having to pay full price. He may no longer be Twitter’s largest shareholder, with Vanguard Group re-upping its stake, but given his political views and despite his 82M+ followers, one couldn’t put it past Twitter to at least consider deplatforming him, or putting him in a time out. Become a major stockholder! Remember: Twitter had no compunctions about deplatforming a US President.  Good luck with that, now!

How free is one, in these United States, to air one’s views? As MSNBC noted in a broadcast, “(Elon Musk) is trying to control how people think. That is our job.”

In case there was any doubt in your minds and great to have an unbiased press, what, eh, as Vice noted Twitter Loses Elon Musk the Board Member, Regains Elon Musk the Shitposter. No bias there!

“Twitter announced it would activate a special corporate defense mechanism called the “poison pill” to thwart tech titan Elon Musk’s hostile takeover attempt of the company, Yahoo!News noted.

‘Poison pill?’ In case you missed it, Musk is the poison pill!

Names have meanings and Musk’s is Elon, which has always reminded us of ‘elan’ – flair – which Musk certainly has in spades. With some 9.2% of the shares, although, okay, a bit less now, Musk now ‘owns’ a media company. Mission accomplished! The story/drama will no doubt continue, but the bottom line is that he not only accomplished what he set out to do, but as a byproduct, he also shined a light on the unbridled biased practices of the platform as well as those of various tech media outlets.

And with true Musk flair, he did it with elan. Onward and forward.