📱 Even if Elon Musk can fix Twitter, he shouldn't buy Twitter

Also: 5 Quick Questions for … economist Alan Cole on why America can't build anymore

In This Issue

The Essay: Even if Elon Musk can fix Twitter, he shouldn't buy Twitter

5QQ: 5 Quick Questions for … economist Alan Cole on why America can't build anymore

Micro Reads: carbon removal, DALL-E 2 , metascience, and more …

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Quote of the Issue

“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” - Founders Fund

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📱 Even if Elon Musk can fix Twitter, he shouldn't buy Twitter

My guess is that Twitter will reject Elon Musk’s (somewhat) surprising $43 billion offer to buy the social media platform. Good. I don’t want Elon Musk to buy Twitter. But not for the reasons being espoused by many who are against the possible takeover. Reasons like this:

Max Boot 🇺🇦 @MaxBoot

I am frightened by the impact on society and politics if Elon Musk acquires Twitter. He seems to believe that on social media anything goes. For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less.

And like this:

Axios @axios

The world's richest man — someone who used to be compared to Marvel's Iron Man — is increasingly behaving like a movie supervillain, commanding seemingly unlimited resources with which to finance his mischief-making.

trib.alElon Musk goes into full goblin modeHe’s serious.

I hope American democracy isn’t so brittle that its continued existence might hinge on who owns a microblogging platform that maybe a quarter of US adults use and has a market cap of less than $50 billion. That said, it would be perfectly fine if some uber-rich businessperson possessing Muskian-level innovativeness got their hands on Twitter to, using Musk’s phrase, “unlock” its potential. Plenty of Wall Street analysts agree. It’s a stock with some “buys,” a few “sells,” and lots of “holds.” As one analyst told CNBC: “Clearly investors have wanted Twitter to move faster, iterate faster, drive revenue faster. There's no doubt that investors want that.”

Investors think Twitter is undervalued

Twitter bulls think it should be a $100 stock rather than a $50 stock. For them, Twitter’s supposed malign political influence isn’t the issue, but rather monetization — especially given how hard it is for new entrants to compete in its space. This is a good insight from a JPMorgan analyst:

Of course, some new owner might try to radically reimagine Twitter rather than just making incremental changes such as adding an editing function or letting users purchase a blue checkmark. Something like this: