Elon Musk has a ‘Plan B’ if Twitter takeover does not succeed

If his attempted takeover of Twitter fails, Elon Musk says he has a ‘Plan B’

Speaking about his attempt to purchase Twitter for $41bn, (€37.9bn), Elon Musk told a conference in Vancouver on Friday, April 15, that he was ‘not sure’ if he would succeed. Attending the TED2022 conference, Mr Musk added that if his offer to buy Twitter shares for $54.20 (€50.13) each failed, he did have a ‘Plan B’ up his sleeve.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, Musk is now officially the richest person in the world. He told the attendees in Vancouver that he believed Twitter had “kind of become the de facto town square as an inclusive arena for free speech”.

Outlining his vision for the company, he added, “It’s just really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they’re able to speak freely within the bounds of the law”.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told staff that the executive team refuses to be ‘held hostage’ by Musk’s offer, and they are still considering whether to accept it or not. They will “carefully review the unsolicited proposal, to determine the course of action”, that will be in the best interests of the company and its shareholders.

Musk insisted that Twitter should “open source the algorithm”, for both trending topics and tweets. This would mean that users who don’t have a chronological timeline can still publicly access and analyse everything on the platform.

In a letter to Bret Taylor, the chairman of Twitter, Musk said, “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy. Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it”.

The Space X boss had rejected a seat on the board at the social media giant only a few days ago. Had he accepted then it would have prevented him from buying the company. He reiterated in Vancouver that his move was not financially motivated.

“This is not a way to sort of make money. My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important”, he explained. Musk was also critical of the way in which one individual such as Mark Zuckerberg wields such power.

“You’ve got Mark Zuckerberg owning Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and with a share ownership structure that will have Mark Zuckerberg the 14th still controlling those entities. Like, literally”, he concluded, as reported by news.sky.com.

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Written by

Chris King

Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com

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