Can Elon Musk Save Democracy?
The billionaire wants to resurrect Twitter's founding principle of free speech.
UPDATE: This morning Elon Musk offered1 $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the Jan. 28 closing price at a valuation of $43 billion - Twitter shares rose 18% in pre-market trading.2 Elon discussing his vision for Twitter on TED today:
Twitter founders, Evan Williams and Biz Stone were free speech absolutists. Like their prior startup3, Twitter would be free from censorship - anyone would be free to write anything they liked without interference. They also believed it was vital for the company to remain politically neutral. That policy began to change when they handed the reins over to Jack Dorsey. Under his leadership, the company’s neutral stance was eroded as evidenced by Dorsey’s decision to moderate a White House Twitter town hall meeting with President Obama. Even more worrisome for free speech supporters was Dorsey’s decision to suspend America’s oldest newspaper founded by Alexander Hamilton to suppress information that would have negatively impacted Joe Biden’s chances of being elected.4 However, the last vestiges of Twitter’s founding spirit were crushed when the board appointed Parga Agrawal as CEO.
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