the troubles of Twitter in the Musk-Corriere.it era

Anonymous: goodbye if you are forced to reveal us. Doubts about the financing of the operation

Hundreds of thousands of progressives who stop following their favorites on Twitter where, on the other hand, the following of figures from the radical and Trumpian right is growing. Celebrities in revolt who threaten to leave (but very few, for now, really do). The Anonymous collective that warns him: “If you force us to reveal our identity, we’ll leave.” And, even, the fear of internal sabotage by Twitter employees determined to oppose ideological resistance to the new boss or enraged by the sale of the social network to a character accustomed to treating his employees harshly: the company has suspended for some days of software updates, perhaps to reduce the risk of system tampering. It is not a soft landing for Elon Musk three days after the announcement of his conquest of Twitter: many had foreseen political difficulties for a highly skilled entrepreneur in manufacturing industrial production but without managerial experience in the field of communication, even if he himself is a great communicator and a successful influencer.

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Fear

As well as analysts had expressed the fear that his commitment to Twitter, with the need to sell a large part of his Tesla shares to finance the acquisition, he could “cannibalize” the auto stock that underlies the billionaire’s wealth. But what is happening on both fronts goes beyond the darkest forecasts: Tesla stock continues to fluctuate strongly, but is consolidating a loss of more than 10% compared to last week’s values. Reuters noted that Tuesday night’s decline, reducing Tesla’s capitalization by a whopping $ 126 billion, had caused Musk to lose $ 21 billion – exactly the amount the businessman pledged to extract from his equity a week ago. to finance the acquisition of Twitter, as shown in the prospectus he presented to the Sec, the authority of the American stock exchange. An acquisition that could become financially problematic for him if Tesla’s stock market bleeding continues.

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The appeal

As for Twitter, despite Musk’s appeal that invited all users, even those who don’t love him, to stay, promising absolute freedom of dialogue on the platform, the first signs are alarming for him: shields from public figures , from Mia Farrow to Black Lives Matter leader Shaun King, to actress and model Jameela Jamil, to London Mayor Sadiq Khan while Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren calls the acquisition of Musk “dangerous for democracy.” Many stomach pains but few actual abandonments among celebrities, also because there are not many viable alternatives. Who really threatens to leave is the collective of Anonymous: they warn that “if Twitter imposes the verification of identity we will abandon the network, as we have already done with Facebook”. Understandable, given that the raison d’être of these hackers is anonymity and another problem for Musk who announced that he wants to make the identity of all users transparent. But the main issue, for him, is the risk that, even beyond his will, the acquisition will be perceived as a right-wing operation. Celebrities do not leave but many anonymous progressives do: Barack Obama, the most followed star of the network, lost 300,000 followers in one night, but the bleeding also concerns sites dedicated to human rights, without a specific political connotation: even the Auschwitz Memorial lost 35,000 members in one night. Big party, on the other hand, on the right even if Trump, while praising Musk, for now prefers to stay on his platform, Truth Social: Marjorie Taylor Greene, flag of the ultra-right, has gained 100,000 followers in a few hours while Tucker Carlson, the most followed of conservative Fox News hosts took 141,000. And he celebrates with an emphatic “We are back”, we’re back. Obviously on Twitter, which he considers “regained”. Musk can attempt corrections but, for now, only in words: the acquisition, which involves complex corporate steps and authorization processes, will not go through for six months.

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