Since April, I’ve been writing about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and its implications. This page aggregates those writings.
The tl;dr is that Musk never really wanted to own Twitter: he wants to sell more cars and thinks that the way to increase his Total Addressable Market is to pivot his personal brand from “the guy who makes electric cars that are a liberal issue no right-thinking conservative would embrace” to “conservative firebrand.” My friend Shawn Riegsecker pointed out that Tesla is coming out with an electric pickup truck, and pickups over index with Red states. When Musk failed to wriggle out of the Twitter acquisition, he was like the dog that finally caught a car.
Here in reverse chronological order are what I’ve written:
No, Musk’s Behavior Isn’t Hurting Tesla (April 7, 2024)
Elon’s Just Zis Guy, Y’know? (December 3, 2023)
Musk, Twitter, NPR (April 16, 2023)
What Happens When Companies Become Partisan (December 18, 2022)
The End of Cheap Scale (November 6, 2022)
Musk & Twitter: Can We All Please Calm TF Down? (October 30, 2022)
Why Musk is Stalling (October 9, 2022)
What Twitter should do next (after Musk) (July 10, 2022)
Elon Musk Still Doesn’t Want Twitter (May 1, 2022)
Musk, Trump, Twitter, and New Media Math (April 17, 2022)