Elon's Dilemma

 

    

    Most of the country is now aware that Tesla owner Elon Musk has purchased Twitter. Musk faces several challenges related to that purchase. Many Trump supporters were jubilant over Musk's promise to turn Twitter into a "bastion of free speech". The problem with that claim is that conservatives don't actually believe in freedom of speech. When a conservative uses the term "freedom", they mean freedom to adhere to the rhetoric of their radicalizing mass movement. People who really believed in freedom wouldn't be "patrolling" ballot boxes while wearing body armor and menacing people with assault rifles, nor do they result to juvenile insults and childish conspiracy theories when people counter their arguments. Conservative media spaces are the most heavily censored places on the Internet. The Disqus feeds on sites like Breitbart and Gateway Pundit are closely monitored by staff, and anyone who authors a comment that counters the conservative narrative on those sites is blocked from posting any future comments. This reaction often happens within minutes of someone posting their first comment debunking the conservative narrative. There are already reports of mass deletions of accounts happening on Twitter. Although Musk claims to be trying to purge the site of "bot" accounts, it appears that thousands of liberal users are being deleted as well. The problem is that without those liberal Twitter users, advertisers don't have any incentive to pay for advertising on the Twitter platform. 

    Musk has a fiduciary responsibility to investors who went in on the Twitter deal with him, and if his actions result in the loss of billions of dollars worth of advertising, then the other investors in that group can sue him for breach of fiduciary duty. Those lawsuits could easily cost Musk billions.  Angry right-wing incels are not attractive to advertisers. If they were then right-wing Twitter clones like Truth Social would be worth far more than they are. Many Trump followers describe themselves as "NEETs", an acronym for "Not in Employment, Education or Training". "NEET" is another way of saying "scrub". Scrubs don't have disposable income other than what their parents give them for their allowance, and large firms aren't going to spend billions on advertising to support a platform that's been over-run by members of that demographic. 

    Associating himself with the far-right threatens Musk's primary investment in Tesla. Right-wing NEETs don't buy $100,000 high performance sedans, and other automakers are partnering with companies like LG and Samsung to produce electric vehicles that are superior to Tesla vehicles in terms of fit and finish and long-term reliability. Musk's decision to ally himself with the far right at the exact same time that Tesla is facing increased competition from other automakers could result in Tesla going bankrupt in a matter of just a few years. This means that not only is Musk facing the loss of the $44 Billion that he allegedly paid for Twitter, but that he could also suffer massive losses in market value for Tesla, and may even see his company go bankrupt as the college educated upper-middle class consumers that are the traditional market for Tesla products decide they want nothing to do with any Musk products. In short, Tesla could end up going bankrupt because of Musk's investment in Twitter.