Elon Musk is the latest millionaire to make the bad decision to try to buy Twitter.
For almost all the sixteen years of its existence, Twitter has had a reputation for not meeting its potential and that it could be much more. The dilemma of Twitter is that it is a well-known but not so widely used service; it is a financially successful company, but not very successful; sometimes competently managed but also chaotic; and influential in a way that is exciting but also terrifying.
The perpetual belief that Twitter only needs one great idea to become amazing has made many people think about buying the company to make it shine, but it is unlikely that anyone will actually want to own it.
Whether you're hooked on Twitter or are among the majority of users in the world who stay away from the app, what happens with this company is important. Twitter is increasingly a digital gathering place that world leaders fear and want to control, and where elected officials, activists, journalists and executives like Musk spread their messages and settle accounts.
Musk made a semi-formal proposal last week to buy Twitter, which in effect put a “For Sale” sign to the company. No one knows what will happen next.
Maybe Musk will become the owner of Twitter, if he stays interested long enough to find piles of money to help him pay his bid of around $43 billion. Maybe another billionaire, another tech company or another financial investor will buy it. Maybe no one will.
Living with an uncertain future is nothing new for Twitter. You could spend days counting the number of times several companies considered buying this platform of information or rumors about a possible sale.
Twitter has always been on sale, partly for technical reasons. Unlike other technology and media companies, including Google, Facebook, and The New York Times, Twitter doesn't have a special type of stock that allows its founders to almost veto a sale.
However, there is also a perennial belief that Twitter should be something more than it is. Many people believe that all Twitter needs is a small fix (a function to edit tweets, a new administration, a new type of technology for the main structure, a change in advertising strategy, reduce costs and modify the application or more lax rules for freedom of expression, which is what Musk want).
Politicians and other influential people, including Musk, regularly complain that Twitter censors too much or too little. In addition, Twitter investors always claim that the company doesn't make enough money.
If I could sum it up in one sentence, Twitter is not Facebook, which generates twenty-three times Twitter's annual revenue and nearly 2 billion daily users compared to Twitter's 217 million. (Companies count users a little differently, but that gives you an idea.)
“Twitter's cultural influence is as big as Facebook's, even though it's just one-twentieth its size,” said Mark Mahaney, who has followed Twitter for years as an investment analyst who now works at Evercore ISI. That makes people wonder, “What's wrong with Twitter?” , he commented.
Even so, most people and companies that have considered buying Twitter in detail have been frightened and fled. In 2016, Disney withdrew its attempt to buy it partly because executives were concerned about spoiling the company's family image if it became the owner of a revolting information platform. Salesforce boss Marc Benioff changed his mind when Salesforce investors hated the idea of a business software company owning Twitter.
Government authorities would most likely not allow companies that appear to be related to Twitter, such as Google and Facebook, to buy it, due to monopolistic concerns.
Twitter is too big, but at the same time it's not big enough, although it's not good enough either. It's not Facebook, and that's why a lot of people want to buy it, but at the same time they don't want to buy it for that very reason. Twitter could give influence to any owner, but also too much unwanted attention.
Musk could be one of the few people in the world who is brave enough (or dumb) to want to buy Twitter and actually do it. Maybe Musk is the person who will finally be able to unleash the potential of Twitter. Or perhaps, it will only end up being part of the long list of people who once thought they could do it.
© The New York Times 2022
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