Trading on Twitter: Too Little, Too Late

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Number of the Week: -80% (explanation below)

Trading on Twitter: Too Little, Too Late

Since Elon Musk’s quest to buy Twitter for a bloated price became public about a year ago, the world’s richest man has made a lot of pledges about what he will do with the ailing social media platform. Many of them failed or were abandoned before being tried. For example:

• In December, Musk issued a Twitter poll about whether he should step down as the head of Twitter. “I will abide by the results of this poll,” he said. More than 57% of 17.5 million poll respondents voted yes. Yet he’s still at the helm of the company, and this week joked about making his dog the CEO.

• Musk has repeatedly said that he wants to make Twitter a home for maximal free speech. Yet he has booted journalists from The New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN (and other outlets) off the site.

• There’s been a longstanding discussion of removing the blue-check authentication for people and companies not willing to pay for it. To the extent that this is happening, the progress is slow and inconsistent.

• In October, Musk announced “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints. No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.” No council was ever assembled.

And so on. Yet this week, Twitter arguably made progress toward one of Musk’s more ambitious goals: to turn Twitter into a “superapp,” a one-stop shop for all sorts of activity, particularly financial.