DNA Special: Why the world’s richest man Elon Musk desires to buy Twitter

The world's richest industrialist Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter for three and a quarter lakh crore Rupees. In its 11-year history, Twitter has made losses instead of profits for 9 out of 11 years. Its balance sheet is quite short, but despite this, Elon Musk wants to buy it. Today, we will tell you that Elon Musk actually wants to buy Twitter not for money but for influence. He wants to capture the Twitter bird in his cage in the name of protecting freedom of expression.

Elon Musk’s Twitter bid

Elon Musk currently holds a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter. In addition, the famous investment management company of the United States, Vanguard Group has 10.3 percent. Another investment banking company in the United States, Morgan Stanley, has 8.4 percent and Saudi Arabia's Prince al-Waleed-bin-Talal holds a 5.2 percent stake in Twitter.

Apart from this, other companies also have stake in Twitter. Elon Musk wants all these companies and industrialists to sell their stake in Twitter to him and become the sole owner of Twitter.

Elon Musk has made an offer of Rs 3.22 lakh crore to buy Twitter. This money is so much that it can repay more than half of the debt of a country like Sri Lanka. However, big companies and industrialists around the world are very surprised by this offer of Elon Musk. Because Twitter is a company that has been in constant loss for the last several years.

READ | 'Their salary will be USD 0 if my bid succeeds': Elon Musk's jibe at Twitter Board

In 2021, Twitter had a loss of Rs 1,690 crore. Whereas in 2020, the company had lost Rs 10,600 crore. If we talk about the last 11 years, then in 9 of these years, this company has suffered a huge loss.

So, why does Elon Musk want to buy the company which is in loss from the beginning for over Rs 3.2 lakh crore. What is it about Twitter that Elon Musk doesn't see this as a loss-making proposition?

Elon Musk has said that he does not want to buy Twitter for the purpose of doing business. Rather, he wants to buy this social media platform and make sure that people who use Twitter in the world get freedom of speech through it. Through this platform, he kept conveying his thoughts and his point to the world.

Elon Musk is doing great things about free speech. But the truth is that he wants to capture Twitter's bird in his cage in the name of free speech. He wants to buy Twitter despite it seeming like a loss because he knows that in today's internet age, the work that a tweet can do, not even a bomb can. Elon Musk understands the potential of Twitter and he knows that if the control of Twitter comes into his hands, then he will be able to easily influence the world's big influencers and people with blue ticks. In short, he wants to use Twitter's soft power. You can understand this soft power from these figures.

Twitter’s soft power

In 2010, the total number of Twitter users worldwide was 54 million. But in 2021, this number has increased to about 400 million, out of which 206 million users access Twitter every day.

At present, 8.85 percent of the people in the world use social media. In addition, 7.2% of internet users use Twitter once a month. Twitter has the largest number of 73 million users in the United States. After this, the number of Japan comes in this list, where there are 55.5 million users of Twitter. And the number of people using Twitter in India is 22.1 million.

READ | After sinking of Moskva, Russia declares ‘space war’ on Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites

Apart from this, the highest number of 38.5% of Twitter users are between the ages of 25 and 34. 17.1% of people between the ages of 18 and 24 use Twitter.

Why people use Twitter, you can understand it from the example of America. 48% of Americans go to Twitter to find out the news. Many people use this platform for entertainment. 34% of people use Twitter to stay in touch with their family and friends.

Apart from this, there are people like Barack Obama, Justin Bieber, PM Modi and Elon Musk, all the big celebrities of the world, whether leaders, actors, players or from any other field, they are all on Twitter.

That is, the effect of Twitter is much larger than the size of its business and the number of users. Because it gives people a platform where news is also broken and narratives are also created. And that's what sets up Twitter as a powerful tool.

What you think today, what are your likes and dislikes, what are your political thoughts, what do you think about your country and your government, what do you think about different issues, all the data is with these social media companies today. And having all this data of any company means that it can easily influence all your decisions. That is, if Twitter is bought by Elon Musk today, then he will have the data of millions of people of the world and he will be able to influence the governments of small and big countries according to his policies.

For example, during the Arab Spring, the countries of the Middle East launched a campaign on Facebook against their governments and demanded the restoration of democracy in their countries. And then through Facebook, this movement reached the world and after the intervention of countries like America, the governments in many countries of the Middle East changed.

READ | Twitter adopts ‘poison pill’ to challenge Elon Musk’s plan to acquire company

Such social media platforms can change the government of a country and Elon Musk wants to take advantage of this soft power of Twitter.

Let's take another hypothetical example. Suppose there is an epidemic like Covid-19 in the future and a country like India imposes a lockdown there to save the lives of its people. But Elon Musk feels that due to this lockdown, his factories will be closed and his business will come to a standstill. So, in such a situation, he will use Twitter to save whom, to save people's lives or to save their business. It is possible that he will put pressure on the Government of India with the help of Twitter to save business and run a campaign against the lockdown. Like he did during Covid as well.