Elon Musk Buys Twitter – The Impact on Small Business

Elon Musk is buying Twitter, as he said he would.

According to a FoxBusiness.com report, the Twitter board of directors agreed to Musk’s offer to take the company private for $44 billion. Stockholders in Twitter will get $54.20 for each share of the company they own at the time the deal is made official.

Musk tweeted several times since news of the deal went public. They mostly focused on free speech, a topic about which Musk has been critical of Twitter and how they police content.

Elon Musk is Buying Twitter for $44 Billion

While the free speech issues surrounding Twitter may not have much to do with your business directly, today’s development should definitely be of interest to small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Why?

Consider these points:

• Elon Musk is only 50 years old and he’s worth $265 billion. Obviously, he knows a bit about running a business (SpaceX, Tesla). Small business owners should watch and learn as he makes changes to Twitter.
• Changes Musk makes to Twitter are likely to have an impact to business owners and brands that use or don’t use the site.
• Musk’s purchase of Twitter could have a ripple effect on other social media platforms.

Musk has promised that Twitter will have new features. Before inking the deal, he gave a preview of certain elements of Twitter that he wants to change:

“I believe that free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk has said. And also, “Speak freely within the bounds of the law.”

Musk had previously expressed his displeasure with Twitter content moderators who banned users, most notably, past-President Donald Trump. He’s in favor of “time outs” in lieu of bans.

He posted this tweet Monday afternoon:

How Will Elon Musk Change Twitter for Small Business and Brands?

Some small businesses and brands excel on Twitter. Content creators can use the platform to build a loyal following. But in reality, the site as it’s designed now, lacks a lot of the features that attract businesses to sites like Facebook, which could be seen as more of a seller’s platform than Twitter.

It’s also much smaller than Facebook in terms of users. Twitter was founded in 2006 and by 2010 had 54 million users. In 2021, there were about 400 million users.

By comparison, Facebook and YouTube are giants. Facebook has an estimated 2.8 billion users, with YouTube fast closing the gap at 2.3 billion users. WhatsApp has 2 billion users. Instagram has 1 billion users, followed by TikTok with 800 million and Snapchat with 300 million.

Businesses and entrepreneurs who aren’t on Twitter may want to consider joining or at least paying attention to any potential changes Musk implements that could have an upside for them.

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