The whole lot we expect we learn about Elon Musk’s plan for Twitter

“I’ve a ton of concepts,” Elon Musk texted Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal in April, “however lmk if I’m pushing too laborious. I simply need Twitter to be most wonderful.” This was a couple of days after he agreed to affix the corporate’s board — and some weeks earlier than he determined to purchase the corporate as a substitute, earlier than making an attempt to renege on that deal, earlier than suing and being sued by Twitter, earlier than apparently deciding to undergo with it in spite of everything. For all of the forwards and backwards over the past a number of months, it’s nonetheless clear that Musk likes Twitter as a platform, understands its attraction and energy, and has plenty of concepts for the best way to change it.

In a traditional scenario, we’d now be capable to say with digital certainty that Musk will, in fact, become the majority owner of Twitter. However, in fact, that is Elon Musk, so the “something can occur and probably the most insane factor most likely will” rule nonetheless applies. There’s nonetheless a trial scheduled for October seventeenth and loads of time left for chaos on this deal.

However let’s play this out a bit and assume the deal truly closes in some unspecified time in the future within the close to future. We are able to start to show to the subsequent query: what’s going to a Musk-owned Twitter be like? Over the past six months, Musk has given us some clues as to how he may push to vary the platform and even the entire objective and level of Twitter. And on Tuesday, he pointed to the place it’s headed. “Shopping for Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the the whole lot app,” he tweeted after the information of his renewed provide went public.

As typical with Musk, and particularly with Musk and Twitter, you need to imagine him about as a lot as you’d imagine some other Extraordinarily On-line poster — which is to say, not a lot in any respect! Musk typically says issues he doesn’t imply; his beliefs change over time; issues might change as soon as he truly owns the corporate; he may not find yourself proudly owning the corporate or proudly owning it for very lengthy; he may simply shut the entire thing down for the enjoyable of it! 

However with a thousand caveats assumed, right here’s what we expect we learn about how Twitter, the product and platform, may change with Musk as its proprietor:

X, the “the whole lot app” Musk referred to yesterday, is fairly clearly modeled after WeChat. WeChat, which is owned by the Chinese language tech large Tencent, is totally important to on a regular basis life in China for a whole lot of tens of millions of customers. It’s like a messaging app, an app retailer, and an online browser, multi functional service; it’s principally the iPhone constructed into an app.

“There’s no WeChat equal outdoors of China,” Musk stated during a Q&A with Twitter employees in June. “You principally reside on WeChat in China. If we are able to recreate that with Twitter, we’ll be an excellent success.”

That is roughly the imaginative and prescient that Evan Spiegel has for Snapchat and Mark Zuckerberg for WhatsApp. Even WeChat has tried to duplicate its China success in different nations, to no avail. Everybody wants to be a super app, however no person has pulled it off.

Musk has lengthy been a fan of the Sign messaging app, and the platform has been on his thoughts from the earliest days of his involvement with Twitter. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, earlier this yr, texted Musk that the way forward for Twitter ought to contain a protocol run by a basis, so it was separate from any enterprise issues. “A bit like what Sign has finished,” Dorsey wrote. “In any other case you may have floor space that governments and advertisers will attempt to affect and management.”

Musk, too, has been eager about the best way to deliver a few of Sign’s options — and even its precise platform — into Twitter. “Making an attempt to determine what to do with Twitter DMs,” he texted Brian Acton, Sign’s co-founder and government chairman. “They need to be finish to finish encrypted (obv). Dunno if higher [sic] to have redundancy with Sign or combine it.”

One large purpose Musk appears to be chasing the WeChat mannequin? Funds. WeChat makes cash partially by taking a reduce of all of the funds — for lease, meals, live performance tickets, garments, the whole lot — made within the app. Musk appears to be concerned about doing the identical with Twitter: in his investor presentation, he stated funds could possibly be a $1.3 billion enterprise by 2028. 

Keep in mind, Musk is a part of the PayPal Mafia, the early group of founders and executives that received wealthy after PayPal was acquired by eBay after which set off to overcome the remainder of the tech trade. Add his love of all issues crypto in there, and you may see why turning Twitter right into a cost processor is likely to be compelling.

Few individuals would most likely consider Twitter as an excellent platform for video, however Musk is clearly concerned about altering that. He has talked with a number of buddies and colleagues about the best way to make video promoting work on Twitter and the best way to deliver video creators over from platforms like YouTube and TikTok.

“From a social perspective — Twitter permitting for high-quality video uploads (1080p at a minimal) & including a primary in-app video editor would have fairly a big effect I believe,” Vivien Hantusch, a longtime Musk fan who now works for him in Germany, texted to Musk. “Particularly helpful for citizen journalism & enjoyable academic content material. May even assist Twitter regain market share misplaced to TikTok.” Musk’s response: “Agreed.” After which, “Twitter can’t monetize video but, so video is a loss for Twitter and for the these [sic] who submit.”

Pushing Twitter to change into extra creator-friendly additionally matches with Musk’s different ambitions for the platform. Creators are probably the most dependable supply of massive audiences, and Twitter’s cost instruments would take a reduce of subscriptions and suggestions.

With reference to the Twitter algorithm, Musk’s take is tough to pin down. He informed Twitter workers he needs the app to be more like TikTok, providing an routinely generated feed of countless cool stuff. However he has additionally inspired individuals to switch to the reverse-chronological feed and stated that “you’re being manipulated by the algorithm in methods you don’t understand.”

Musk’s plan appears to be to offer individuals selection. As a substitute of 1 algorithm governing customers’ expertise of the platform, he has stated he needs to “open-source” the algorithm and let others make new ones. This entire concept is a lot more complicated and less plausible than he makes it sound, in fact, however it appears probably that he’ll push for customers to have extra choices for the way their timeline works.

For a quick second, the concept of a blockchain-based way forward for Twitter appeared to attraction to Musk. “I’ve an concept for a blockchain social media system that does each funds and quick textual content messages/hyperlinks like twitter,” he texted his brother Kimbal. “You must pay a tiny quantity to register your message on the chain, which is able to reduce out the overwhelming majority of spam and bots. There isn’t any risk to choke, so free speech is assured.”

Musk additionally appeared concerned about working a decentralized social community as one thing other than Twitter — an concept just like what Twitter has already been exploring with Bluesky. However finally, Musk appeared to resolve it merely wouldn’t work — not less than not but. “Blockchain Twitter isn’t potential,” he texted the banker Michael Grimes a couple of weeks after the texts to his brother, “because the bandwidth and latency necessities can’t be supported by a peer to look community, until these ‘friends’ are completely gigantic, thus defeating the aim of a decentralized community.”

Musk has talked so much about Twitter Blue over the past a number of months and appears to see paid memberships as a core a part of Twitter’s future. He pitched traders a plan that concerned getting 69 million Blue subscribers by 2025 and 159 million by 2028. He needs to chop promoting to lower than 50 % of Twitter’s income, and the one method to do this is to persuade customers to pay up in a giant method.

To drag that off, Musk seems able to overhaul the options Blue gives. He and enterprise capitalist Jason Calacanis talked a number of occasions about how unhealthy Blue was and the options they could add to enhance it. “Premium function[s] abound…and Twitter Blue has precisely zero,” Calacanis wrote. The edit button is an already accessible Blue function Musk most likely likes, however that most likely received’t get 69 million individuals to pony up for Blue. There are probably extra to return. Musk has even urged that customers ought to pay to be verified on the service.

Clearly, Musk has spent the previous couple of months ranting and raving about the problem of spam and bots on Twitter. And whereas he most likely has a much bigger crypto-scam-reply-guy drawback than your common Twitter consumer, there’s no query that inauthentic customers are a factor on Twitter. Musk has pledged to make “authenticating all people” a precedence whereas additionally purging the bots from the platform. In truth, that’s one of many causes he wished to take the corporate personal within the first place: to take away all of the bots and crater Twitter’s consumer numbers with out scaring traders.

How will this play out, and what does it imply for the numerous innocent and enjoyable bots on Twitter? Onerous to say. Anybody who has tried to combat spam and bots is aware of that differentiating between human and machine is way tougher than it sounds.

Virtually as quickly as Musk first introduced he’d purchased a big chunk of Twitter inventory, he started to place himself because the free-speech savior of the platform. About 12 hours after Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted that Musk was becoming a member of the board, Musk — apparently contemporary from a telephone name with Dorsey — texted him about his first needs. “Could be nice to unwind everlasting bans, aside from spam accounts and people who explicitly advocate violence.”

Musk has indicated that he would reinstate Donald Trump to the platform and desires to drastically reduce Twitter’s content moderation to permit the whole lot that doesn’t violate native legal guidelines. (This, like so many issues Musk says he needs to do, is dramatically extra sophisticated and troublesome than he makes it sound. There are loads of legal guidelines! And so they’re fairly totally different from place to put!)

Some customers have taken this to imply Musk needs to push the platform in a right-wing direction, however Musk claims he’s impartial on the topic and solely needs to make Twitter the identical.

This might all have large implications for the 2022 midterms, the 2024 election, and the overall day-to-day expertise of utilizing Twitter. However once more, it’s vital to do not forget that Musk doesn’t but personal Twitter, that Twitter is a big and complex product that will likely be laborious to shift in the best way Musk is describing, and that Musk’s plan is to basically emulate everybody else’s plan to construct an important app you utilize all day on daily basis.

To drag this off, Musk may also must rebuild the corporate itself. Morale is low inside Twitter, long-term tasks have been shelved or canceled, and plenty of workers are lower than thrilled concerning the modifications to return. However say this for Elon Musk: he’s not shy about taking large swings. No matter it appears like, you’ll be able to safely guess that the Twitter we all know now received’t be round for for much longer.