The Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, has derided the Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, for owning vast media platforms as Musk himself attempts to buy the vast media platform Twitter.
Talking at a Ted conference in Vancouver, Musk accused Zuckerberg of having too much control over public debate given his ownership of Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other social media sites.
“As for media sort of ownership, I mean, you’ve got Mark Zuckerberg owning Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, and with a share ownership structure that will have Mark Zuckerberg XIV still controlling those entities,” said Musk, seemingly referring to King Louis XIV, the “Sun King” whose wealth and power were legendarily vast.
“We won’t have that at Twitter,” added Musk, who is currently bidding to buy Twitter for more than $40bn after failing to join their board of directors this week.
Of his potential ownership, Musk has said that he wants to keep the maximum number of shareholders. He currently owns 9.1% of Twitter.
According to the Daily Mail, Musk also said he wants to keep Twitter’s algorithm open-source and transparent, as well as allow the site to err on the side of free speech versus censorship. Musk added that Twitter could act as an “inclusive arena for free speech”.
News of Musk’s potential Twitter ownership has not gone over well with many Twitter employees. As reported by the Washington Post, while Twitter is a fairly liberal workplace, Musk has frequently caught flak for mocking gender pronouns and sharing Covid-19 misinformation.
Tesla has also faced multiple lawsuits for racial discrimination and sexual harassment.
“Musk taking over Twitter would be a nightmare for many employees that have worked under the [former Twitter CEO] Dorsey and Twitter regime,” said Daniel Ives, a managing director and senior equity research analyst at financial services firm Wedbush Securities, to the Post.
