Vitalik Buterin Supported The Idea Of Twitter Takeover By Elon Musk

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin expressed support for Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter but questioned the positive effect in general from the transfer of media platforms to the ownership of billionaires.

Don’t oppose Elon running twitter (at least compared to status quo), but I do disagree with the more generalized enthusiasm for wealthy people/orgs hostile-takeovering social media firms. That could easily go *very* wrong (eg. imagine an ethically-challenged foreign gov doing it) https://t.co/LDqjXh3xCK

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) April 15, 2022

According to Buterin, hostile takeovers in the presence of low barriers can discipline management. But this may not work for the media, especially when it comes to social media. They have an extremely high level of influence, but often low monetization and relatively low capitalization, which makes them a target for such transactions.

The problem is particularly bad in the social media case because media platforms combine very high levels of influence with often low monetizability (and so low market cap -> cheap to acquire)

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) April 15, 2022

Buterin suggested imagining an option for Saudi Crown Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to increase his share of Twitter from 5% to 50%. In this case, the leader of the country with “ethical problems” will have much more influence on the policy of the platform than the growth of his stake in the company, the co-founder of Ethereum emphasized.

The “but that Saudi guy already owns 5%” point is well taken but ultimately weak imo. Control is superlinear in ownership stake. His level of ability to control policy is very low now, and would increase by *far* more than 10x if his ownership increased to 50%.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) April 16, 2022

According to Buterin, Twitter has a “public good”. The platform should not be controlled by the authorities.

I personally consider twitter to be a public utility, but where there are lots of very good reasons why that “public” should not be represented by any specific government. Hence the challenge…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) April 15, 2022

Ethereum co-founder was supported by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao suggested that the “poison pill” proposed by the board of directors of the platform (poison pill) for Elon Musk may not be in the interest of investors.

This is how capitalism works, right? The “poison pill” on the other hand, sounds unfair. The board seems to be protecting itself (power/control) over the interests of all the investors. Anyway, I am sure there is more than what’s on the surface.

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) April 16, 2022

As a reminder, the plan approved by the board of the platform allows shareholders to purchase additional shares at a discount if any entity or individual acquires at least 15% of Twitter shares without board approval.

Previously, Musk became the largest shareholder of the company after acquisitions of 9.2% of shares for $2.89 billion. He launched an initiative to reduce the cost of a Twitter Blue subscription and adding payment in Dogecoin (DOGE).

April 14 Musk offered to buy Twitter for more than $43 billion. He explained it intention to create an “inclusive arena for free speech”rather than the desire to make money.