After Twitter accepted Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid, which is now the most trending topic on social media, Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos posed a provocative question: whether China will rely on Musk’s Tesla business to quash Twitter criticism of the country.
Bezos, the world’s second-richest man, behind only Musk, chimed in on April 26 morning, citing a post by a New York Times reporter who mentioned Tesla’s ties to the Chinese government and asking, “Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?”
It came as a response to NYT reporter Mike Forsythe’s post which stated, “Apropos of something:
-Tesla’s second-biggest market in 2021 was China (after the US).
-Chinese battery makers are major suppliers for Tesla’s EVs.
-After 2009, when China banned Twitter, the government there had almost no leverage over the platform -That may have just changed.”
It is noteworthy that after signing a purchase, Musk dubbed Twitter the “digital town square” and has made his belief in unfettered debate a core goal for the acquisition. He wrote: “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated…”
“I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spambots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” he added.
The deal has sparked discussion about the consequences of a powerful and rich individual with diverse economic interests controlling a platform used by over 200 million people and playing a vital role in determining the political and media agenda in the US and worldwide.
However, in subsequent tweets, Bezos, the executive chairman of Amazon, corrected his remarks, saying that any Chinese pressure was unlikely to result in censorship.
“My own answer to this question is probably not. The more likely outcome in this regard is complexity in China for Tesla, rather than censorship at Twitter,” he wrote.
Bezos, who owns the Washington Post and has a net worth of $177.5 billion, also added: “But we’ll see. Musk is extremely good at navigating this kind of complexity.”
According to reports, Elon’s purchase should go through without too much regulatory wrangling, although bringing up the possibility of undue influence from a foreign government is one method to clog the works.
Employees at Twitter were taken aback by Musk’s takeover, which was unexpected and contentious. Following the announcement of the transaction, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told staff at an all-hands meeting on Monday that the social network’s future course was uncertain.
Agrawal said: “Once the deal closes, we don’t know which direction the platform will go.”
However, Musk will meet with Twitter employees for a question-and-answer session at a later date, according to the firm.
Meanwhile, Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s founder, has backed the latest chapter in the company’s history and tweeted “… Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness”.
Dorsey, who stepped down as the Twitter CEO in 2021, also said: “The idea and service are all that matters to me, and I will do whatever it takes to protect both.”
Forsythe and Bezos weren’t the only ones who have criticised the billionaire on the network. As many users continue to slam the move, ‘#leavingtwitter’ was one of the most popular hashtags in India for a while.
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