Elon Musk
Elon Musk (Image: Sipa USA/John Lamparski)

Elon Musk’s eventual decision to buy Twitter is predictable. Not because it makes much sense for a reasonable person. A reasonable person would assume deciding to stump up US$40-something billion to buy a social network would be a big enough decision that it would take something monumental to change your mind just a month later.

It’s predictable because it’s Elon Musk and we should expect the most non-serious decision at every juncture.

Every turn of the saga — from submitting a bid at the meme price of US$54.20 a share, to getting cold feet (probably because of his shrinking wealth), to citing disingenuous reasons for backing out, to challenging a seemingly bulletproof legal agreement to buy the company, to now, suddenly, agreeing to buy the company — makes total sense when you consider that Musk is:

  • Extremely rich and used to getting what he wants
  • Arrogant enough to think that he is intelligent enough to solve a platform’s problems when a company filled with individuals who’ve dedicated much of their working lives trying to improve the service has not
  • At least smart enough and always willing to make a decision in his own self-interest in the short term, no matter what it means for anyone else. 

If you need any further clue as to the way Musk conducts himself, cast your eyes over these text messages revealed as part of the now-aborted lawsuit’s discovery process. 

As some of the world’s richest and most powerful people grovelled at his feet, Musk proposed ideas that would drastically change Twitter and accepted fundraising offers worth $1 billion with the same amount of effort that it takes to order Uber Eats. Maybe that’s the way billionaires operate; it’s nonetheless quite jarring to consider how casually decisions that would affect one of the world’s most important social networks are being hashed out.

Musk’s Twitter takeover has felt chaotic so far, but really, the chaos is only the beginning. Once he and whoever is funding his takeover gets their hands on the lever, will they implement Musk’s thought-bubble ideas no matter the consequences? Or will cooler and more experienced heads prevail as the new owners compromise with the company’s staff about how to implement some of the proposals? Will loyal staff stick around? So far this takeover has been all about the posturing of extremely rich men — but it’s about to start having real-world consequences.

There will be a lot of commentary about whether Musk or Twitter’s shareholders won out of this deal. What of Twitter’s users? Musk’s vision of the platform under his leadership is all about improving the user experience for him — a platform power user — and not the average poster. Similarly, shareholders are being richly rewarded for selling the platform, with little concern for who is buying it. 

What happens next? If you buy into the Elon-Musk-as-Tony-Stark myth, then you’d expect this hands-on billionaire genius to drastically overhaul the platform (for better or for worse, depending on your beliefs). But the most Musk-y outcome would be to buy the company, hand down a few edicts about changes and then mostly leave its running to others, popping back in occasionally to personally announce some of the new, most exciting features. Because, after all, it’s not all that serious to him.