Whats All the Fuss?
For the last week or so all anyone seems to want to talk about is Elon Musk buying Twitter and for the life of me I can’t understand what all the fuss is about. Musk seems to just draw more and more attention with whatever he does and I just don’t get it.
For years, I used to dislike Musk for many reasons but over the last few years I have come to realize that he really is brilliant. My original feelings were simple, he was a genius but like many geniuses, a bit out there. Saying and doing things that defied the norm and getting away with it. Using Twitter and whatever social media platforms he could find, he would say things seemingly off the cuff and people, myself included, would just scratch our collective heads. However, at some point I realized that this guy is not only brilliant, he is very shrewd and his bigger picture is one that few can actually see.
He gets plenty of press with Tesla and SpaceX (deservedly so) but now he is stepping into a new realm. Buying Twitter is another Musk genius stroke and not for the reasons you think.
Having the World’s richest man buy a social media platform isn’t all that unusual. I am not sure why such a big deal is being made of this. Bezos bought the Washington Post and it barely caused a ripple. I just don’t get it.
Is it because the liberal left is worried that more voices will be heard on the platform and that scares them? Is it because they fear that Donald Trump will be allowed back on the platform before the Mid Term Elections this year? Is it because he is a bit of an eccentric and no one really knows where Twitter will go?
Maybe it’s me but I could care less.
Twitter is a jumble of voices and is filled with more nonsense than any platform in history. It is the “Worlds Town Hall”? Come on. Half the people on there don’t even put their real name and location. Oh wait, they verify! Stop. I could put up 3 fake accounts and say the nastiest stuff ever and I am a dummy as far as tech is concerned. Hold on, it’s a great source of breaking news! That’s a constant refrain I hear about it. So what? You know about a news event seconds after it’s happening. Great. Now what? Unless that news event is happening directly in your vicinity, what difference does it make if you read about it now or in two hours on CNN or CNBC? It doesn’t. You get information immediately that has not been verified and possibly is fake or slanted in some way.
I will give you a convoluted example. Many years ago, I was on CNBC talking about Twitter and my point was “What’s the Point?”. One fellow from Silicone Valley was saying how important it was for him to have that immediate information to trade on and I said if you believe that Twitter added value to a specific trade than you are delusional. Whatever information comes across a Twitter feed has already been traded on by multiple computer programs and by the time you get involved, the trade has already happened. You are one of the last to the parade and those same computer models are selling you shares at a tidy profit. The example was when Carl Icahn Tweeted that he had purchased a billion dollars of Apple. The stock moved up 8% immediately after the announcement. I asked him at what point did he buy stock and he refused to say. The point was (and still is) that it is nice to have information in a timely manner but does it really improve your life in any way. No, it really doesn’t and that is my point.
Twitter is not the most important development of the 21st Century. It is a media source like CBS or NBC. It has millions of participants but that doesn’t mean it is any more important.
I don’t use Twitter other than posting these columns to get a little broader reach but the reality is, I have over 5,000 followers and if I post a column I may get 10 or 15 more readers than if I don’t. That just means that people have so much coming through their Twitter account, they just don’t have the time to read it all. The overwhelming amount of posts is just too much to handle and I would love to see how much time is wasted reading through them.
At the end of the day, Elon Musk paid around 45 billion dollars for a company that will have around 560 million dollars in profit this year. If it wasn’t Twitter, would he ever done such a thing? Probably not. Ask any billionaire investor if they would do the same, my guess is no, they wouldn’t.
Just because I am not a fan of Twitter does not mean he is wrong. I think Elon Musk knows what he is doing and it isn’t political and it may not be financial. It’s something else. Something only he sees.