Elon Musk says he has a Plan B if his offer to buy Twitter fails, but for now, he’s keeping it to himself.
On Thursday, Musk spoke at the TED2022 conference in Vancouver hours after the financial and technology worlds were hit with the bombshell that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO wants to buy the social media giant and turn it into a private company.
“I could technically afford it,” he said, according to The Washington Post.
“I do think this will be somewhat painful, and I’m not sure that I will actually be able to acquire it.”
Musk, 50, is Twitter’s largest individual shareholder, with a more-than 9 percent stake. He has begun a $43 billion bid for a hostile takeover of the company.
Chris Anderson of TED asked Musk about a “Plan B” if his current offer to buy up Twitter’s shares is rejected.
“There is,” Musk replied, according to CNBC. He did not elaborate.
Twitter’s board is considering Musk’s offer. Musk, whose estimated net worth of more than $250 billion makes him the richest person in the world, tweeted his advice to the board after his TED appearance.
“Taking Twitter private at $54.20 should be up to shareholders, not the board,” he tweeted, giving Twitter users the option to vote yes or no on his idea.
Taking Twitter private at $54.20 should be up to shareholders, not the board
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2022
Musk followed that with an enigmatic message that could have been addressed to either his fans or critics.
i♥️u
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2022
During his comments, Musk shared some of his vision for what Twitter would be if he owned it, saying: “I think it’s very important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech.
“Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square. So it’s just really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they’re able to speak freely within the bounds of the law,” Musk said, according to The Verge.
Twitter should “open source the algorithm” to build trust, he said.
“The code should be on GitHub so people can look through it,” Musk said.
He said he isn’t worried about making a profit from Twitter.
“This is not a way to sort of make money. My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important,” Musk said. “So the future of civilization, but you don’t care about the economics at all.”
Although Musk’s offer generated hand-wringing about a social media giant being controlled by one person, he noted that such a state of affairs already exists.
“You’ve got Mark Zuckerberg owning Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp and with a share ownership structure that will have Mark Zuckerberg the 14th still controlling those entities,” he said. “Like, literally.”
Musk said when it comes to policing Twitter, “time-outs” are better than bans. He also said he wanted to ban “spam and scam bots.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
