In a historic turn of events, another public media company has been purchased by a billionaire. Elon Musk now owns Twitter in a $44 billion dollar buyout, and influencers have a lot to say about it.
Elon Musk is now the sole owner of Twitter, this is following on from a rocky week where he purchased part of the company, joined the board, was kicked from the board, and then decided to go all in. Paying a premium rate for shares at $54.20 a pop, Musk went into overdrive to pressure the company into folding to his wishes.
Sharing a statement on Twitter, Musk said “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”
He continued his statement with a declaration for what he wants to achieve in Twitter’s future. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.”
This attracted mammoth amounts of attention from huge names in entertainment and content creation, like Dream, TimtheTatman, Ninja, and plenty more. Here’s what they had to say about it:
Elon Musk is set to acquire Twitter where he will entirely own the company pic.twitter.com/AJ9qt0DKZP
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) April 25, 2022
Masked Minecraft YouTuber Dream made light fun of the hugely expensive purchase. Pointing out that the app is “Literally free.”
Before describing Elon as “an idiot.”
Elon Musk bought Twitter when it’s literally free 🤣🤣😂😂🤣😝😝 what an idiot
— Dream (@Dream) April 25, 2022
Meanwhile, Irish variety streamer JackSepticEye was hoping to use the chance of Elon buying the social media giant as an opportunity to finally break free from a playful relationship with the Minecraft community for “ratioing” him.
Now that Elon bought twitter, can he get minecrafters to stop ratioing me?
— Jacksepticeye (@Jacksepticeye) April 25, 2022
Ninja, never shy of making a splash, looked back on “buying that kids bank” before looking up to Elon’s ability to flex.
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I thought buying that kids bank and foreclosing his house was a flex 😭😭 I got a lot to learn. https://t.co/692NEbVDTF
— Ninja (@Ninja) April 25, 2022
Keeping his cards close to his chest, and making it clear he’s as much of a spectator in this series of events as the rest of us, MrBeast said that the proceedings were simply “interesting”.
He followed his statement with a popcorn emoji, clearly entertained by the latest move from one of his biggest inspirations.
This is going to be so interesting 🍿
— MrBeast (@MrBeast) April 25, 2022
Timthetatman even took the time to shoot his shot, congratulating Elon on the purchase before asking to run Overwatch 2 duos.
Elon is yet to take him up on the offer, despite Musk’s previous engagement with the Overwatch community.
@elonmusk yo bro congrats on buying twitter- more importantly tho OW2 is coming soon wanna run some duos?
— timthetatman👑 (@timthetatman) April 25, 2022
More than just influencers, however, everyone on Twitter had opinions on the news. With some members of the general public being far from stoked with the purchase, feeling that Elon could be doing vastly different things with his money. Throwing back to a time where he made a hollow promise to end world hunger.
Friendly reminder that Elon Musk told the UN that if they gave him a budgeted breakdown of how $6Bil could end world hunger, he would do it. They gave him the budget and then he decided not to do it, and instead decided he would buy Twitter for $45Bil. https://t.co/CtRW8OJJVH
— Evelyn, your One-Eyed Trans Crush 🏳️⚧️💕 (@CaptAmazo) April 25, 2022
The long term effects on Twitter are impossible to know, but it’s guaranteed to cause a huge shake up for the platform. While some have left the platform in protest, Musk addressed the backlash against him by saying “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means”.