Ev Williams on Elon Musk the New Twitter Owner
“I think what we’re also seeing is people project either their hopes and dreams or their worst nightmares” — Williams said of Musk
It’s a done deal. Twitter is now in the private hands of Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. He doesn’t need any introduction, Elon Musk is a brand in himself.
The man behind Tesla is now the man who has the power to change the way conversations happen on Twitter.
Aside from being one of its most popular users with over 90 million followers, his tweets can make or break the price of Bitcoin, make fun of Bill Gates and make women see red, and call him out for his misogyny.
Everyone was taken by surprise when he announced his $43 billion bid to take Twitter private. The Twitter Board adopted the “poison pill ” to thwart what the Board believed was a hostile takeover.
It only took 11 days and it was a done deal. The final price was $54.20 a share and the takeover was worth $44 billion.
Elon Musk announced the ‘good news,’ where else but on Twitter. And since then, Twitterverse is divided.
Many were surprised that former CEO Jack Dorsey was supportive of the Elon Musk takeover plan, five months after he stepped down as its CEO.
In a barrage of tweets, Jack criticized the Board. Musk noted that once Dorsey leaves the Board after his term expires, the Board ‘owns almost no shares!’
When the dust settled, this was how Musk managed to come up with the money.
Mr. Musk secured $46.5 billion in funding on April 21. Morgan Stanley and other lenders had agreed to offer him $13 billion in debt, while another set of banks had agreed to lend him $12.5 billion against his Tesla equity. Mr. Musk also stated that he will spend another $21 billion in cash to purchase the remaining Twitter stock.
All about free speech
If we believe Elon Musk, his reason for his $44 billion Twitter buyout is that he is all for free speech. He has publicly chastised Twitter for censoring users who consistently break the platform’s rules. In his recent TED talk, he mentioned that there should be an inclusive arena for free speech.
Musk believes that Twitter is the de facto town square where everyone can speak freely within the bounds of the law.
But one should read this opinion piece from Jessica Maddox
Long-standing conceptions of the public sphere, or town square, feature a romanticized conception of white men debating issues, while others are relegated to the margins.
Not because Elon Musk says so, we must right away be on his side. His concept of free speech has so far only received a positive response from right-wing politicians who use Twitter to further their agenda of fake news and misinformation.
Who made money from the sale of Twitter?
No other than Jack Dorsey made money from the sale, with his estimated 2.4% of the total or 18,042,428 Twitter shares. Fortune reports that Jack is set to make an additional $270 million, the value of his Twitter shares had gone up from $39.31 before the sale to $54.20 raising its value from $709 million to $978 million.
It was a great day for Jack Dorsey.
“In principle, I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company. Solving for the problem of it being a company, however, Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.” — Jack Dorsey.
Ev Williams
While we may know Ev as the CEO of Medium, he was once the CEO of Twitter. In an interview that happened at a dinner hosted by Fortune Magazine in San Francisco, Ev Williams replied when asked what he thought of the Musk takeover of Twitter.
I’m “excited to see what happens” with Elon Musk at the helm.
Other notable answers from Ev include:
- Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter and subsequent takeover could “open up some new possibilities” for the social messaging platform, according to co-founder and former CEO Evan Williams.
- This includes allowing Twitter to test new income sources, such as subscriptions, without being pressured by skeptical public-market investors.
- Musk, the billionaire who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is described by Williams as “clearly a genius who thinks on another level,” but he also acknowledges Musk’s polarizing reputation, comparing him to the trendy idea of Web3, a vague philosophy centered on a more decentralized internet that has ardent believers and critics.
“I think what we’re also seeing is people project either their hopes and dreams or their worst nightmares‘’ — Ev Williams
Ev also believes that an edit button isn’t a big deal.
While Ev has long been away from Twitter, a company he co-founded and helped built into what it is today, he had remained one of its top shareholders.
Although through the years Ev Williams had divested his shares in Twitter. In 2019 when he resigned from the Twitter Board after serving the company for 13 years, his total shares were down to 1.5% of the total or 11 million shares.
In 2018, he owned 3.86% or 29 million shares.
There isn’t any update as to how much he had kept of his Twitter shares before the Musk takeover, but if he had kept all of his 1.5% of the total, EV is set to make an additional $164 million.
The value of his Twitter shares had gone up from $39.31 before the sale to $54.20 raising its value from $432 million to $596 million.
Conclusion
Elon Musk’s Twitter buyout remains to be this year’s biggest tech news, and no one knows what will happen next to Twitter.
Will it follow a subscription-based model as a revenue source? Will Donald Trump return? Will Elon Musk continue to tweet daily, and double down on his attack on fellow multi-billionaire Bill Gates?
Elon Musk has built electric cars, has sent people to space, and now he plans to fix Twitter, will he succeed or will he fail?
Thank you for reading.
Sources:
How Twitter’s Board Went From Fighting Elon Musk to Accepting Him — The Tesla founder is proving himself to be a formidable troll-in-chief — Why Elon Musk Bought Twitter — Ev Williams on Elon Musk the New Twitter Owner
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