<\/p>\n
by John Biers <\/p>\n
Closing in on his Twitter megadeal, Elon Musk said on Thursday his goal is to enable \u201chealthy\u201d debate of ideas and counter the tendency of social media to splinter into partisan \u201cecho chambers\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a message meant to reassure jittery Twitter advertisers on the eve of a court-imposed deadline to finalise the deal, Musk said he would work with marketers to \u201cbuild something extraordinary together\u201d.<\/p>\n
The billionaire entrepreneur pursued the $44 billion (R800bn) deal \u201cbecause it is important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner\u201d, Musk tweeted.<\/p>\n
The planned takeover has dismayed activists who fear a surge in harassment and misinformation under the unpredictable Musk, who himself is known for trolling other Twitter users.<\/p>\n
But Musk said he realises Twitter \u201ccannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Tesla boss\u2019s on-again, off-again acquisition of the platform appeared to be entering its final phase after a Delaware judge paused litigation on October 6 on Twitter\u2019s suit against Musk after he previously walked away from the deal.<\/p>\n
Musk has reportedly been lining up financing and, while there is always the chance of a last-minute curveball, more signs point to the deal\u2019s likely closure.<\/p>\n
The New York Stock Exchange posted a pending order to suspend trading in Twitter before Friday\u2019s session.<\/p>\n
Shares of Twitter climbed 1.1% to $53.96 near 1615 GMT on Thursday, not far below the $54.20 purchase price of Musk\u2019s deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect Musk and Twitter to officially close the deal by Friday morning with Cinderella finally getting the glass slipper that fits,\u201d said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.<\/p>\n
\u2018Chief Twit\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Musk originally agreed to the Twitter acquisition in April, but soon pulled back, saying in July he was cancelling the contract because he was misled by Twitter over the number of fake \u201cbot\u201d accounts \u2013 allegations rejected by the company.<\/p>\n Twitter in turn sought to prove Musk, who also heads aerospace firm SpaceX, was contriving excuses to walk away simply because he changed his mind.<\/p>\n A trial on Twitter\u2019s suit was scheduled for mid-October, but the Delaware court gave the parties until 5.00pm on October 28 to close the transaction.<\/p>\n Fresh questions about the deal and Twitter\u2019s future surfaced last week following reports Musk planned deep staff cuts.<\/p>\n But on Wednesday, Musk changed his Twitter profile to \u201cChief Twit\u201d and posted a video of himself walking into the company\u2019s California headquarters carrying a sink.<\/p>\n The South African-born entrepreneur cuts a polarising figure in American business.<\/p>\n Supporters cheer his disruptive spirit and achievements at Tesla, while detractors criticise him as a megalomaniac with a dangerous tendency to wade into geopolitical topics in which he lacks expertise, such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict.<\/p>\n In his latest statement on Thursday, Musk said much of the public speculation about his intentions in the deal had been \u201cwrong\u201d as he insisted his goals were noble.<\/p>\n In pursuing Twitter, \u201cI didn\u2019t do it because it would be easy. I didn\u2019t do it to make more money,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n \u201cI did so with humility, recognising that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk urged marketers to devise ads that were \u201cas relevant as possible\u201c to consumers, appealing to the industry at a time when tech giants Google and Facebook have reported big declines in advertising revenue.<\/p>\n \u201cLow relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Insider Intelligence<\/em> analyst Jasmine Enberg said Twitter\u2019s ad business has suffered due to uncertainty surrounding the Musk deal, as well as the macroeconomic concerns that have buffeted the broader online ad industry.<\/p>\n \u201cEven slightly loosening content moderation on the platform is sure to spook advertisers, many of whom already find Twitter\u2019s brand safety tools to be lacking compared with other social platforms,\u201d Enberg said.<\/p>\n Having more relevant ads was \u201ca noble goal, but one that is difficult to accomplish\u201d, Enberg said.<\/p>\n \u201cMusk is set to acquire Twitter at a time when data is already scarce and users are highly skeptical of forking over more personal information to social platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n AFP<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by John Biers Closing in on his Twitter megadeal, Elon Musk said on Thursday his goal is to enable \u201chealthy\u201d debate of ideas and counter the tendency of social media to splinter into partisan \u201cecho chambers\u201d. In a message meant to reassure jittery Twitter advertisers on the eve of a court-imposed deadline to finalise the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1238499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-celebrity-gossip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1238499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1238499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1238499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1238499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}