My Personal Side
By Craig Hastings
For as long as I’ve been alive, probably the most influential man in the world has been the President of the United States of America. I’m doubting this is the case as of one week ago. No, no, not China’s Xi Jinping and certainly not Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Actually, considering the poor performance of the Russian military in Ukraine, Putin has become small potatoes as far as how the small circle of world powers are rated. If not for the threat of Putin using his nuclear arsenal on the rest of the world, the Russian Bear seems to have lost more teeth than a ten year methamphetamine addict. So which leader of what world power country am I referring to? Well currently anyway, this man is just a boss and the leader of no one.
The man I’m speaking of is Elon Musk. Touted as the world’s wealthiest man with a reported net worth of $265 billion, Musk purchased probably the most influential social media outlet in the world last week, Twitter. But why would the owner of a space exploration company, electric automobile company, and countless other investment and manufacturing companies buy his own social media platform? My question; why not start your own platform? Musk is certainly wealthy enough to do so. As popular as he has become in the last five years he certainly would have no problem enrolling millions of users and doing so in short order. The simple answer is, because he can. At the same time Musk would not only cause a tidal wave of controversy from the Democratic left wing, he would also forego the time frame it would take to establish a new platform that would have to compete with Twitter. And likely Musk and company would crush Twitter all together. It was much simpler to just buy your would be competitor and build on what already is.
If you don’t follow the trends of the various social media platforms you probably don’t know that Twitter, by design, controls most of what does and what doesn’t get read by all who subscribe to the service which is about 217 million people. Of course you can understand how Twitter can and has influenced political races and therefore the politics of America. Without doubt, by withholding all of the Hunter Biden scandal just before the 2020 presidential election, the Trump campaign was damaged. This is exactly what Twitter did. The only Hunter Biden information users of Twitter were exposed to in 2019 and 2020 were stories that discounted the credibility of the true facts of the scandal. Any writers and reporters that dare write the truth and expose Hunter Biden’s secret life of drug use, questionable business dealings, and wild sex exploits were quickly banned and kicked off of the Twitter platform all together. This included President Trump and many of his supporters.
So is all of this deception, misinformation, and constitutional violation why Elon Musk decided to buy Twitter? Maybe. I’m guessing in short order we will have the answer to this question. Musk has already made statements inferring he will restore Twitter to a free speech platform for all users and not just Democrats holding the highest offices in America. He’s pledged to let everyone express themselves within reason. Meaning obvious derogatory statements and out and out lies and fabrications will be filtered out. This all sounds too good to be true but it couldn’t come at a better time than now, just before this year’s November elections. Democrats across the country are both outraged and scared to death of some of their political futures. Me, all I want is for the truth to be told by all those who seek a political office. Let the American voters gather all the information they can before they make their decisions on who best to lead this country.
Will it happen? Will Elon Musk not be influenced or “sell out” to one side or the other? I’m confident Musk will bring Twitter to a fair and balanced platform that most Americans will come to rely on for accurate information. If you ever doubted that wealth buys power, here’s all the proof you need to know this is true. If Elon Musk wished to control via media influence how Americans cast their votes in future elections, he certainly could do that now. But I’m sure he won’t. No, Mr. Musk would rather use this Twitter platform as his own entertainment resource. He’s going to have the time of his life telling some people no they can’t and at the same time telling others that finally, yes they can. Yes, I think just maybe after the smoke clears from the sale and takeover by Elon’s own people that Elon Musk might be the most influential and powerful man on the planet. When he’s on the planet. Remember this is the guy with his own spacecraft he plans to fly to Mars and establish human colonies there for permanent living. So will he then be the most influential man in the entire universe as we know it? Maybe!
(The views and opinions expressed in the submitted columns are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Journal.)