Now that Twitter is owned by Musk, what changes will he make? Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center has some ideas.

Close

Gainor: The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, just bought Twitter. Now what’s he going to do with it?

Musk made his name with Tesla electric vehicles and his own personal space race. Now he dominates the discussion on the very platform he just purchased, as left and right try to predict the future of the most-influential social media site.

Twitter isn’t important because of numbers. It has “more than 217 million daily users,” according to The New York Times. That’s less than 10% of Facebook’s user base. But it punches far above its weight because of who those users are. The core of the site is made up of journalists, activists, politicians and celebrities of all fields.

Every major national issue gets fought out or spun on Twitter. When Times opinion columnist and editor Bari Weiss left the paper, she skewered it for its reliance on social media. “Twitter has become its ultimate editor,” she said.

It’s not just the Times, it’s the entire legacy news industry. And since Twitter continued to censor prominent conservative voices, the site became more and more of a leftist echo chamber. Now that should change. So here are questions for Musk as he takes on a task that Hercules would have found daunting:

How Will Musk Handle Angry Leftist Employees?: Twitter doesn’t censor conservatives just because of the rules. It does so because the enforcers of those rules overwhelmingly support the left. Perhaps some of the most radical will quit. But others might stay just to thwart him. Musk needs to weed out the worst as fast as he can.

How Does Musk Handle Washington?: Left and right are divided about free speech as night and day. The left wants to censor conservatives and conservatives don’t want to be censored. Democrats are still nominally in charge in D.C. (till the election). How is he going to work with those who already want to regulate him? Former President Obama made it clear he wants more censorship, not less. He’s far from alone.

Who do you think would win the Presidency?

By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from LifeZette, occasional offers from our partners and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement.

What About So-Called Misinformation and Disinformation?: One of the biggest frauds of today’s political debate is the idea of misinformation and disinformation. All the top platforms call out posts for violating obscure and often outright false interpretations of news events. They use this to silence discussion of anything the left doesn’t like — the Hunter Biden laptop, the Wuhan lab leak and the media’s false claims of Russian collusion. How will Musk unwind this affront to free speech?

Will Musk Stop Being … Musk? Musk is known for trolling people on Twitter, making jokes and acting like it was Twitter before the censors took over. Just days before completing the purchase, he tweeted out an image of a chunky Bill Gates in a blue shirt along side the new pregnant man emoji, also in a blue shirt. Will the new Twitter CEO still act like a typical Twitter user? Or will he go depressingly corporate? (Narrator: He won’t change.)