Over the week, the virtual world was in a panic after Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for a bid of $43 billion. At first, Twitter was considering it, but then they executed the “poison pill”, which if successful, would prevent a hostile takeover and allow shareholders to buy the Twitter stock at a discounted price! Outside of Twitter, the world is divided on the idea of Elon Musk buying Twitter!

Those who are for it, are championing the idea that Elon will finally make the app a “true freedom of speech” platform where everyone can voice their opinion without the concerns of being de-platformed if their opinion happens to fall on the wrong side of the political line. Discussion of other sensitive topics could be had with consequences etc. An open platform, as Twitter should be according to these people.

While others are concerned that this will allow a heavy amount of toxicity to take place, no longer being a safe haven for people to come and share progressive ideas! That and a lot of people currently don’t like Elon Musk for whatever reasons so anything Elon does is frowned upon.

Personally, I really don’t see why the Board at Twitter would reject the offer. Regardless of what you think of Elon Musk, the man is a successful businessman first and foremost, and with Twitter having been stagnant for 8+ years, having him as the lead could prove more beneficial to both the company and its many shareholders. The only reason why I think Twitter initiated the poison pill might have been from public pressure. Seeing how so many people reacted to the deal likely made Twitter take the pill in order to buy them enough time to negotiate a suitable deal with Elon. The deal, at 54$ per share from Elon, is beyond generous, so a refusal is perplexing to me. Not only that but the pill also harms current shareholders, which will likely force some of them to file a lawsuit against Twitter. We will just have to wait and see how this whole thing plays out!

In regards to freedom of speech, as I have said in the past, there really is no such thing as freedom of speech, even if Elon Musk manages to buy Twitter, if the people don’t like how the platform turns out under Elons rule, they’ll just leave. There’s also the fact that Elon’s definition of freedom of speech may be different from what people are imagining. He could simply ensure that you are allowed to voice your thoughts on whatever topic you like, but the public will still act as judge, allowing a feature that gives people the right to vote off people from the platform. Or Twitter could turn into a right-wing extremist site as some fear. Who knows The latter is unlikely as there are many right-wing sites but nobody cares about them. The truth is that there is a bias of speech that is happening and it has created an unbalance, so if Elon can address it, even a little bit then I’m all for it