Elon Musk — Hidden Agenda on His Twitter acquisition?

What does the man who has made a fortune in electric cars and fulfilled mankind’s dream of private space travel want next?

As soon as he took over as CEO of Twitter Inc. after acquiring the company for $44 billion (about 6.45 trillion yen) at the end of October, he embarked on a sweeping reform of his own.

“He dismissed all nine board members and immediately fired about 3,700 employees, or half of the company’s total workforce. In addition, on the service side, the company introduced controversial reforms, such as charging $8 per month for an “authentication badge” and permanently freezing accounts identified as spoofed,” said a desk clerk at a national newspaper’s economics department.

As the event took place before the U.S. midterm elections, social networking sites were flooded with voices trying to ascertain Mr. Mask’s intentions. Some have pointed out that discriminatory posts on Twitter have increased, and some are wary of flickering political agendas, such as Mr. Mask tweeting on his own account to vote for the opposition Republican Party.

To begin with, Twitter has been in the red for two consecutive years, and at first glance, it seems like a company that does not have enough merit to make a huge acquisition. That is why there is speculation of political use, but in reality, there is a business intention. Takahiro Suzuki, president of Hyakunen Consulting, Inc.

In fact, there are synergies between Tesla’s self-driving cars and SNS. In Mr. Musk’s AI-based connected car, each part of the car will eventually become an entity that spontaneously verbalizes and shares information such as road conditions and breakdowns, and generates big data. In the era of tweeting cars, Twitter, one of the world’s leading social networking services, will be an advantage for the company.

Unsatisfied with the current situation, the Mask Empire aims to further expand its territory.

From the November 25, 2022 issue of FRIDAY