Elon Musk is the founder and CEO of Space X and Tesla, and is set to be the new owner of the social media platform Twitter. Musk, who bought 9.2% of Twitter at the beginning of April, recently made an offer to buy the entire platform for $44 billion. Of course, this move caused a stir in the markets and on the agenda of the social square. He also promised "freedom of speech" to Twitter users with his tweet on April 25, 2022: "I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means." After this breakthrough by Musk, the markets began to react. This acquisition also had an impact on Tesla, Inc. Shares of the company lost value by 12.18% in one day. Accordingly, Tesla lost $126 billion in value in 24 hours. Twitter's shares also decreased by 3.89%, down to $49.68. So why did Musk make this move... to be able to tweet "freely"?
The story of the emergence of Twitter, which has almost 321 million active users in the world today, dates back to 2006. When the founding partner of the application first came up with this idea, he designed it as an SMS-based communication platform where people could communicate with their friends, then opened this idea to other founding partners. The application was developed and became what it is today. The first tweet on Twitter was made by Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of the platform, on March 21, 2006, at 9:50 a.m. The tweet read "just setting up my twttr." Today, on Twitter, an average of 500 million tweets are shared per day, which amounts to 200 billion tweets a year. However, when we compare it to other applications, Twitter lags behind its rivals in terms of the number of active users. When we look at the list, we can see that it is in 17th place. At the same time, we cannot say that it provides a lot of profit compared to other social media applications. Yet, Musk bought Twitter with a large sum.
When we switched to Web 2.0 technology, we predicted that there would be changes in our daily lives. A web system in which we are active and able to share has excited societies. With the introduction of social media applications into our lives, we have started to spend a large part of our lives on these applications. Researchers have already begun to conduct various research on the subject, realizing the winds of change that this will create in societies. It was obvious that our daily life would change, but we could not have predicted that other applications, especially Twitter, would be so effective in international relations, politics and agenda-setting. Today, while the heads of countries make important statements on Twitter, the tweets of Twitter users can change the course of events. It is now possible to talk about social media bureaucracy. With the Arab Spring in 2011, we realized how effective Twitter can be in social events. The role of Twitter in the "Me Too" and "Black Lives Matter" movements is quite large. At this point, we know the structure of social movements has changed. In fact, social media is now the most important weapon of these movements. Everyone is now a journalist, everyone is a reader. This platform, where all kinds of thoughts and information are shared, has become a data treasure.
Next version: Web 3.0
''Every thing is change. The only thing that does not change is change”: The Greek philosopher Heraclitus actually explained the world of today, which changes every day, centuries ago. Maybe we did not expect that there would be so many innovations when the internet came into our lives and that these would affect our daily lives. But the effects of much larger changes await us in the future. Web 2.0 was not the last development. The "virtualization" movement, in which the pandemic process was also effective, began to gain momentum. It is no exaggeration to say that we have moved to the next step, web 3.0, which will allow for decentralized connection without any middleman. Musk earned the right to sit on the board when he bought the highest stake in Twitter. However, he didn't accept it because if he did, he wouldn't be able to buy Twitter today. Musk, along with Tesla, made over $3 billion in profit in the first quarter. When we look at Twitter's revenue last year, we can see that it was $5.8 billion. In other words, if we consider the profit he has made in a short time with Tesla, in this sense, Twitter will not make much sense in terms of profit. So why did Musk, the richest businessperson in the world, buy Twitter for $44 billion, mostly in cash? We have given one of the possible answers to this above in several places: because it is a treasure trove of data. Today, it takes an average of 10 years to obtain this much data. However, there is already an application where data is stored, namely Twitter. In fact, Musk doesn't just want to tweet freely, he also wants data. Big technological companies are now in the race for who will shape the world in the future. Whoever takes the lead wins.
In fact, we had similar discussions when the "metaverse" was announced. The reason for the introduction of this virtual world, which has not been fully developed and will reach the desired level in an average of 10 years, was to get a place in the race. The world is getting ready for the next version of the internet, web 3.0. While Facebook is preparing for the next version with the metaverse, Musk is preparing to switch to the next version with Twitter with its open source feature and freedom of expression rhetoric, giving everyone a blue tick.
There is no single answer to this question. In fact, there is no single reason for all the developments taking place today. It is only possible to say that large companies are making preparations for the transition to the next version of the internet, web 3.0. Twitter, a publicly traded company, has a single owner today. This raises further debates. The acquisition of Twitter may not seem commercially plausible, but it sure is a strategic move. Will companies that are pioneers of change also seize the opportunity to rule the world? We will find out the answer in the near future.
