And now we have little to go on proper now as to the way it will affect the corporate, and the platform as we all know it. What we do know is that Twitter workers are more and more nervous about their jobs, and the enterprise that they could find yourself working for beneath Musk, whereas we’ve additionally had some slight hints as to how Musk plans to alter the app.

To be clear, Twitter shouldn’t be a charity, and after spending $44 billion on the app, Elon Musk will probably be in search of methods to maximise Twitter’s income consumption, and recoup not less than a few of that value. In a latest interview, Musk stated that doesn’t care in regards to the economics of the deal in any respect, and that his driving mission is to run “a public platform that’s maximally trusted and broadly inclusive”.

However with large debt, and accumulating curiosity, Musk has to generate income too, and the bull case for the acquisition is that Musk, being the visionary that he’s, sees one thing that others don’t, and may clear a pathway to optimum success for the platform – although most market analysts see no viable pathway to turning any vital revenue from the app.

So how will Musk do it?

Listed below are the areas that Musk is reportedly proper now – and to be clear, Musk has give you these proposals with out inside information of the corporate and its present make up.

• Rising subscriptions – Musk is reportedly seeking to construct Twitter Blue right into a registration layer, of types, with customers paying a month-to-month charge to get a verification tick that confirms that they’re an precise, actual individual. That might higher allow Twitter to sort out bots (as it might make working bot farms value prohibitive), whereas it might additionally guarantee a stage of transparency within the app, since you would know, primarily based on these new types of authentication tags, that you simply’re interacting with an actual individual, who’s registered their contact and cost particulars within the app. The economics might be tough – if Musk have been to cost $1 per thirty days for this, that might herald $229m per thirty days/$2.7b each year, if the present variety of energetic customers stick round, and aren’t all bots. You’d must assume that fairly a couple of received’t find yourself paying, which brings this down loads, and would cut back Twitter’s income consumption considerably, if this have been the one means Twitter may generate income in future. For reference, Twitter made $5.08b in income in 2021.
• Taking Twitter non-public – In fact, a few of that income strain is lessened if Twitter goes non-public, as it might not be beholden to shareholders who count on to see income rise by an outlined, acceptable quantity. Musk’s view is that Twitter must go non-public to make sure that it may well make selections free from the strain of out of doors forces, enabling it to really grow to be a platform of free speech. The issue with that, in fact, is that advertisers will probably be much less snug putting adverts alongside probably offensive content material – however that then leads into the subsequent stage of Musk’s grand Twitter plan.
• No extra adverts – This could clearly be the most important affect from a social media advertising and marketing perspective – Musk has stated that Twitter ought to not run adverts in any respect to stay really impartial. That then additionally signifies that Twitter would wish to depend on alternate sources of revenue, and with adverts making up 98% of the corporate’s income, that’s a giant gap to fill. A part of Musk’s considering right here might also be that Twitter can reduce prices by additionally eradicating the entire workers that work on its advert components, which might be a significant value saving – besides, if Musk desires to get shut to creating Twitter worthwhile, when factoring in its working bills versus revenue, it’ll be a giant shortfall to make up. It’s tough to see how this is able to be doable, however perhaps, Musk is aware of one thing that we don’t.
• Charging for tweet embeds – This looks as if a bit extra of a stretch, however Musk has additionally reportedly floated the thought of charging web sites for embeds of tweets from verified customers, with the cash probably going again to the customers themselves. That might align with Musk’s push to get extra excessive profile customers tweeting extra usually – perhaps, if they’ll make a couple of bucks from tweeting, that would act as a motivator to get them sharing extra within the app, which may spark extra engagement with their followers, and generate extra in-app exercise total. In fact, the counter is that individuals may simply screenshot tweets as an alternative, although there are methods that Musk may make tweets copyright protected, which might be even simpler if he have been to take this subsequent step.
• Make Twitter ‘Pay to play’ for customers – It is a extra radical transfer – and to be clear, Musk himself has not proposed this concept, as such, simply but. However aligning with the idea of charging customers for a verified consumer tick (totally different to the present blue tick for top profile customers), Musk may look to make all customers pay, or they merely wouldn’t have the ability to use the app. Your first intuition to that is that nobody pays, proper? Individuals can simply use Fb or Instagram or Snapchat as an alternative – so why would anybody pay to easily go browsing and skim tweets? I assumed that too, however upon additional reflection, I do assume that Twitter is a important platform for a lot of journalists, political and different media varieties that use tweets to remain up with the newest information. That’s why Twitter is so influential, regardless of having solely a tenth of the energetic customers that Fb does – whereas its viewers could also be smaller, the people who do use Twitter are typically among the many most energetic of their respective industries, and following the newest tweets permits them to guide tendencies, re-distribute the newest information to their audiences off-platform, stay in-the-know, and so forth. As such, I believe that lots of them would pay, and if Musk have been to lock tweets down, that might imply that they’re not publicly accessible, making it a lot simpler to implement expenses for tweet embeds, in addition to every other re-use of on-platform content material.
• Price-cutting – The opposite key space that Musk is exploring is cost-cutting, which once more aligns with the above factors, in that Twitter may reduce prices considerably if it not ran adverts. Twitter spent $1.7b final yr on gross sales and advertising and marketing and common admin prices, whereas it additionally spent a further $1.2b on analysis and growth, and $2b on infrastructure. With out adverts, these prices may come down loads, and if Musk can scale back these outgoings in a giant means, he may, theoretically, make sufficient cash from his subscription proposals to generate constructive money movement for the app over time, whereas additionally enabling it to stay impartial, and subsequently higher capable of run with a ‘free speech’ method.  

Once more, Musk has made these pitches in conferences to safe funding for his Twitter bid, and with out inside perception into how the corporate is at present run, and what’s really doable throughout the present construction, or inside any future re-shaping of the enterprise.

However it does appear to be that is the place Musk is prone to make his massive modifications, particularly provided that Twitter doesn’t have a whole lot of different paths to take, primarily based on historic efficiency.

However there could also be extra alternatives that we’re not seeing, and the overall view is that Twitter has underperformed over time, with even present CEO Parag Agrawal noting in an all-hands assembly this week that:

“I may have carried out issues in another way. I take into consideration this loads. I really feel accountable for my actions I’ve taken during the last decade. I’ve solely been on this job for 4 months, however I’ve been on the firm for a decade. And sure, we may have carried out higher. Ought to have carried out higher.”

Possibly, now’s the time that Twitter could make these massive modifications, with extra freedom as an impartial firm – and once more, many have pointed to Musk’s genius in different fields, so perhaps he does certainly see one thing that others don’t right here.

What we all know for certain is that this would be the most public demonstration of that genius that Musk has ever had, and if he really is the visionary that many consider, he’ll positively have an opportunity to show it.