Behind the scenes, several billionaires pushed Tesla CEO Elon Musk towards a complete takeover of Twitter.
In their article, which was published by the American Wall Street Journal, writers Rob Copeland, Georgia Wells, Rebecca Elliott and Liz Hoffman said;
As Musk's campaign against Twitter escalates, fellow billionaires and internet trolls have pitted him behind the scenes to buy the bluebird.
The authors of the article explained that these men found in the entrepreneur the right man to stand up to the moderation of the company's content and management.
According to the article;
With Twitter's board accepting Musk's $44 billion takeover offer, the Tesla CEO and the world's richest person is in a position to shape the platform the way he wants;
It is not clear whether Musk took any of his colleagues' advice seriously or followed his instincts.
The article points out that Musk may unleash many personalities and may allow former US President Donald Trump to return to the platform that prevented him from using his account since the last presidential election.
Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, is among Musk's instigators of the (European) deal.
old friends
According to people familiar with the matter, a group close to activists and entrepreneurs with libertarian inclinations encouraged Elon Musk to take over Twitter.
This group includes the so-called “PayPal” and they are former executives of the online payments company, including Musk, investor Peter Thiel and businessman David Sachs, in addition to other personalities such as investor Steve Jurvetson, Musk’s brother Kimball and a member of the Board of Directors of Tesla. Their participation, along with Musk's constant willingness to hear from them, helped explain one of the great mysteries of his Twitter obsession.
Musk has always been keen to interact regularly with fans and critics, tweeting more than 6 times a day in 2018, and his interest in the platform grew even after it caused him to get into legal trouble;
One of his memorable tweets included an indication that he was abusing children, while another tweeted that Musk was considering going private to Tesla and secured funding to do so, which made him pay $20 million to securities regulators to settle the matter.
secret friend
Musk's friends and colleagues say that it wasn't long before his use of Twitter increased, tweeting an average of 9 times a day in 2020 after revealing his budding friendship with then-CEO Jack Dorsey.
The two billionaires sometimes replied to each other on Twitter, often exchanging private messages;
One of the platform's former executives said that Dorsey sometimes put off meetings because he was too busy texting Musk at work.
That is why he believes that among the circle inciting Musk to buy Twitter is Dorsey, who resigned last year under pressure from the Twitter board of directors, and is believed to have been whispering in Musk's ear that Twitter should be made a private company.
While previous executives said the two men's common interests included exploring whether Twitter could be run more effectively as a private company, as it was in the first seven years when Dorsey launched it with several of its co-founders.
Despite their disagreement over how to handle Trump's account;
The friendship continued between Musk and Dorsey, who tweeted on April 25 that Elon was the only solution he trusted, and this coincided with the announcement of Twitter’s acceptance of Musk’s offer, according to which Dorsey would receive the equivalent of one billion dollars in exchange for his Twitter stake.