Elon Musk has said that there could be a “slight cost” for businesses on Twitter once he takes over.
The billionaire said that he wanted to make improvements to the platform in order to make it “better than ever”, including new features. Other changes to Twitter Blue, the site’s subscription service, have been floated, such as cutting its price and allowing users to pay with cryptocurrency dogecoin. The premium service could also have an ‘undo tweet’ button, bookmarks and a reader mode. The tweets regarding the premium service have since been deleted.
Other tweets in recent weeks suggest that Musk wants to make Twitter’s algorithm open source so that it’s transparent to developers and users. There were also reports from Reuters surrounding discussions with banks about monetising tweets that contain important information or go viral. Across the platform he wants to remove spam bots and authenticate all real people, rather than restricting authentication to users with a higher profile.
Musk described Twitter as a ‘niche’ platform at the 2022 Met Gala. Here, he said he would make Twitter transparent around how tweets are promoted and demoted, with a desire to make the software available for public scrutiny.
He may also return the social media site to the stock market within a few years, as he told potential investors. In fact, he could sell his shares in as little as three years after buying it, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Musk is in the process of a $44m takeover which the board of Twitter have agreed to. The estimated $1bn in interest costs attached to the funding hint that he could introduce charges and cost-cutting measures in order to make the purchase viable. One such cost-cutting method is cracking down on executive pay.
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