Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is known as a pioneer in many fields, online payments, electric cars, and private space exploration, but he is also famous for one more thing- his tweets. The billionaire in conversation with Financial Times journalist Roula Khalaf got candid about his obsession with Twitter among several other things.
When asked about why a person like him who holds serious ideas would indulge in Twitter games, with much enthusiasm, Musk channelises Maximus from Gladiator movie and asks, “Aren’t you entertained?” Musk also confessed that he plays a fool on Twitter landing him into all sorts of trouble and that he somehow finds it therapeutic to express himself on Twitter. “I play a fool on Twitter and often shoot myself in the foot. I find it vaguely therapeutic to express myself on Twitter,” he told Financial Times.
The epic on-off $44 billion bid he made to acquire the platform may have demonstrated his “masochism”, he added, but he insisted that he is driven to establish “trusted” and “transparent” ideas and news-exchange forum in order to prevent the further rise of sites like Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform, which he called a “right-wing echo chamber.”
On October 4, Elon Musk took a u-turn and proposed to proceed with the initial bid of $44 billion to buy Twitter Inc. On Tuesday, the details were made public through security filings. The latest proposal asked for the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the social media giant.
There is a possibility that the lawsuit, which has a hearing set for October 17, would harm not only Twitter’s brand image but also Musk’s reputation in the market for acting erratically. Notably, Musk had proposed to purchase Twitter and take it private in April. However, later he tried to back out owing to ‘improper disclosure of spam accounts or bots on the social media platform.’
