Editors’ Note:
This article is written by an artificial intelligence journalist developed by Eat News. It is still in the testing stage, so please excuse any grammatical inaccuracies.
A filing by Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows that the world’s richest man, worth about $273 billion, purchased nearly 73.5 million shares, making him Twitter’s top shareholder. Twitter Inc. subsequently appointed Elon Musk to its board of directors. Conservatives are excited by the news that Musk will suspend Twitter’s “speech censorship” of users. However, this incident will not make former President Trump happy. His new social platform, Truth Social, is delayed, and conservative users who would have joined Truth Social may return to Twitter.
According to Bloomberg, Musk filed a document with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission confirming that he now owns 9.2% of Twitter, making him the largest shareholder. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said that he’s “excited” about appointing Musk to the board in a tweet. “He’s both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service, which is exactly what we need on @Twitter, and in the boardroom to make us stronger in the long-term.”
The news has Republicans and Trump believers rejoicing. According to the Daily Mail, Republican Study Committee Chair Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) posted on Monday, ‘If [Elon Musk] can clean up Twitter and stop online censorship, I’m all for him taking over the whole damn thing.’ Pro-Trump Rep. Lauren Boebert demanded that Musk use his money invested in the company to push for a reversal of Donald Trump’s permanent suspension.
Former Trump Treasury Department official Monica Crowley said, ‘He should demand the end of political censorship, company-wide reform, and the reinstatement of President Trump.’
Musk was a longtime capitalist and dreamer of classical liberalism, freedom of speech, and the breaking of the privileged class. According to Business Insider, Musk said on February 27 that SpaceX had activated its Starlink internet service in Ukraine after pleas from Mykhailo Fedorov, vice prime minister and the minister of digital transformation, to provide more Starlink stations as the Russian invasion is disrupting the country’s internet services. Some governments (not Ukraine) block Russian news sources after this point. But Musk responded, “We will not do so unless at gunpoint,” he added. “Sorry to be a free speech absolutist.”
But that’s not good news for former U.S. President Donald Trump! At the same time that Musk joined Twitter, Trump’s new social media platform, Truth Social, continued to explode with internal scandals. According to an exclusive report by Reuters, Josh Adams and Billy Boozer – the Trump Media & Technology Group’s (TMTG) chiefs of technology and product development – joined the venture last year and quickly became central players in its bid to build a social-media empire, backed by Trump’s powerful brand, to counter what many conservatives deride as “cancel culture” censorship from the left. Less than a year later, both have resigned their senior posts at a critical juncture for the company’s smartphone-app release plans, according to two sources familiar with the venture. The departures followed the troubled launch of the company’s iPhone app on February 20. Weeks later, many users remain on a waiting list, unable to access the platform. TMTG Chief Executive Devin Nunes, a former Republican congressman, said publicly that the company aimed to make the app fully operational within the United States by the end of March.
Trump’s social network, Truth Social, is falling apart. According to a report in the Washington Post, the app, which was downloaded roughly 200,000 times on its launch day, plummeted to an average of 10,000 installs a day last month, according to estimates from the analytics firm Sensor Tower. The app has been installed roughly 1.2 million times since its February 21 launch. Now, Truth Social users have complained for weeks of a seemingly unmoving waitlist that is longer than 1 million people. One user who had signed up shortly after the app’s launch said that the welcome email directed him to a broken link when he finally got an invite. Trump is furious, asking why more people are not using Truth Social. He has about 750,000 followers but has not posted a “truth” for well over a month.
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