Elon Musk will be joining Twitter’s Board of Directors after taking a 9.2% stake in the social media company, according to a tweet from the social media giant’s CEO, Parag Agrawal.
While the stake is described as passive, with the expectation that Musk won’t be taking aggressive stances, many investors think differently, which can be seen by the 27% rise in Twitter stock, reportedly making 5th April 2021 its best day since its IPO.
Here are 5 key areas that Musk will help to shift the Twitter board’s focus to, based on his past activity:
1. Crypto Scams
The multibillionaire has in the recent past railed on Twitter for not doing much to control impersonations on the app some which has resulted in many getting into dubious crypto scams.
In 2021, the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. consumer-protection body, found that cryptocurrency scammers pretending to be Elon made more than $2 million highlighting a major issue for the platform that Musk has always complained of.
Besides Musk, it is typical for impostors to impersonate accounts of numerous popular people, including Barrack Obama and Joe Biden to enable their scams. The practice is so common, Elon even made a joke about it.
2. Open-Source Algorithm
The idea of open source software is already familiar to crypto enthusiasts.
Twitter’s algorithm is what determines the many tweets users get to see on their timelines, the kind of tweets they’re likely to see, the people most likely to show up on their timeline based on their engagement, and user activity on the platform.
An open-source Twitter algorithm could potentially be used, modified, and shared by the public making it more transparent and encouraging healthy competition.
However, critics point out that this is not viable and would particularly have an impact on security.
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3. Censorship
Musk has become a vocal critic of Twitter’s limits on what users can say, suggesting that they run counter to free speech.
The outspoken Tesla CEO polled people on Twitter in March about whether it adheres to free speech principles. He later said he was considering building a new social media platform.
Musk has in the past spoken against the social media site’s appetite for de – platforming controversial views.
4. Edit Button
The Edit Button for Twitter remains one of the most requested feature upgrades in history.
Hours after his holding in the company was revealed, Musk took to Twitter to poll users on interest in an edit button. Agrawal retweeted the post, urging people to ‘vote carefully’ as the consequences ‘will be important.’
5. Remove NFT Profile Pictures
By now its clear that Elon Musk leads with his heart and puts his money where his mouth is.
Elon Musk if he can convince the board, will probably ask Twitter to remove NFT profile pictures, which has shown a disdain for.
Elon then replied to the same tweet saying:
“Twitter is spending engineering resources on this bs while crypto scammers are throwing a spambot block party in every thread?”
Musk’s term is set to expire in 2024, according to a filing with the SEC. For his entire board term or 90 days after, Musk cannot be the beneficial owner of more than 14.9% of the company’s common stock outstanding.
