By now, you’ve likely seen that Elon Musk is set to acquire social media platform Twitter for $44 billion. The Tesla founder is a polarising figure to say the least and people aren’t exactly happy about the acquisition. Musk does seem to be aware of that fact though, saying that he hopes “even his worst critics remain on Twitter,” as I’m sure many will.
The buyout is still in progress and could technically still be cancelled, but at a cost of $1 billion to both Musk and Twitter. It seems that Musk is already planning ahead though, as sources say he’s set to charge for two major Twitter features - likely gaining millions of extra critics in the process if the plan is to go ahead.
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Whilst the majority of the buyout was funded by Musk’s personal wealth and Tesla assets, he also acquired a bank loan. According to Reuters, Musk reportedly told banks that he would rein the money back in from Twitter by making users pay to use both the embed and quote-tweet functions when interacting with tweets from verified accounts or organisations.
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Blocking both of those functions behind a paywall surely won’t go down well with users. They’re basic features of Twitter. Most game studios are verified. If one of your favourite studios released a new trailer to Twitter, you’d no longer be able to quote-tweet telling your followers what you think about it for free, which seems ridiculous.
Previously, Twitter’s creator Jack Dorsey spoke out about the buyout in favour of Musk’s acquisition. Dorsey said, “It [Twitter] wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company,” which seems to be exactly the opposite of what Musk is now setting out to do by monetising basic features. There could be rocky months ahead for the social media platform.
Topics: World News