In his newsletter, Mike Elgan explains why Musk will do everything he can to squirm his way out of his impulse decision to buy Twitter. Not only would it be financially disastrous for the world's richest shitposter, but it would also put his other companies in jeopardy.
Musk should also know by now that buying Twitter is the worst idea he's ever had.
Disgruntled users would boycott and publicly trash his other ventures, including Tesla and SpaceX, over their complaints about Twitter.
Twitter would make Musk vulnerable to manipulation — for example, the Chinese government could demand that Musk terminate the accounts of pro-democracy voices on Twitter as a condition for allowing Musk to open new factories or sell Teslas in China.
And Musk's pro-free speech claims would be tested to the limit. Trolls, racists, Chinese and Russian paid-troll accounts, AI spam bots and legions of shitposters would either engender suppression — "censorship" — or this activity would be allowed, causing Twitter to descend into some 4chan-like nightmare that would be rejected by journalists, celebrities and advertisers.
There is no conceivable scenario in which Musk succeeds with Twitter, Tesla AND SpaceX.
