刚过的4月4日，身家达2646亿美元/1.12兆令吉的世界首富马斯克(Elon Musk)姗姗来迟地向美国证券交易委员会披露，他收购了7300多万股推特(Twitter)股票，约9.1%的股份。由于马斯克也是全球市值最大的电动汽车公司特斯拉(Tesla Inc.)的显著股东，这项股权收购案搅动了整个华尔街。
紧接著，马斯克于4月14日宣布有意以430亿美元/1829亿令吉的现金将推特私有化。推特董事局随即启动“毒丸计划”，即股东权益计划，阻止收购方在未经事先批准的情况下收购了该公司15%的股份。这笔极具争议的收购交易除了引发股东的注意，更吸引了监管单位和推特用户的关注。富可敌国的马斯克相中推特，一般相信主要是该收购可为其带来经济和政治效益。
在经济层面，值得一提的是，尽管有不同社交媒体平台，作为世界首富的马斯克却对推特情有独钟。创立于2006年推特是微博的鼻祖，比中国的新浪微博足足早了3年面世。推文的字符(character)从原有的140个增加到后来的280个。与其他社交媒体最大的差别是，推特就如在移动网络还未普及时的短讯(SMS)一样简单易读。一项研究显示，在讲究“速食”文化的时代里，人们的平均注意力时长从2000年的12秒下降到2017年的8秒。这比普通一只金鱼9秒的注意力时长还短。简短的篇幅也使用户可以通过手机使用推特，这与80%用户是使用手机查阅推文的数据不谋而合。
根据追踪社交媒体Social Blade的统计显示，马斯克的推特账户在最受关注的100个推特账户位列第10，坐拥约8200万粉丝。其他进入10大的世界名人包括了美国2位前总统奥巴马和特朗普、加拿大歌手贾斯汀比伯及葡萄牙籍足球名宿罗纳多尔等。
根据排名，入榜的名人大致可以分为政商界和演艺界人士，对世界具有影响力，每一则推文随时都可能被媒体截取作为新闻头条。对比世界人口，推特用户可以成为世界第6大国，或相等于非洲人口第一大国尼日利亚。相比脸书、Snap和WhatsApp等社交平台，虽然活跃用户只有2.17亿人次，但是推特用户的平均收入更高。换句话说，这些用户有更高的购买力，可以吸引更高端的品牌如路易威登(Louis Vuitton)、马赛地和爱马仕(Hermes)投放广告。这对超过80%收入源自广告的推特来说尤为重要。
除了一般用户，全球投资者也密切留意身为世界首富的马斯克在推特发布的每则推文。仅仅在2020年一年之内，特斯拉的股价暴涨740%，如此惊人的涨幅一部分拜推特所赐。另一方面，提倡加密货币的马斯克也在推特变成币圈教主。马克斯的一条关于迷因加密货币(meme cryptocurrency)狗币(Dogecoin)的推文，在2021年使狗币及其相关加密货币“鸡犬升天”，带领不少“信徒”大捞一笔。这使马克斯的粉丝如滚雪球般的指数性增长，形成网络效应(network effect)，吸引更多人转为推特的用户。华尔街的金融分析员除了关注宏观数据及美联储会议结果外，还需要紧追马斯克在推特的动向，从推文中寻找资金流向，这也使马克斯的账号成为良好的指标。
有效宣传工具
推特用户最关注的莫过于如果马斯克成功将推特私有化，隐私条规和内容审查尤其受人瞩目。在两党制的美国，马斯克声称自己的政治立场是“一半民主党，一半共和党”，他就介于两者之间。他也宣称本次私有化推特是为了提倡言论绝对自由。
别忘了，始于2010年间在中东和北非多国爆发的“阿拉伯之春”就与社交媒体的应用有密切的关系。当时的抗议者利用社交媒体组织示威活动包括支持和反对政府的，传播相关活动的信息，并提高当地和全球对事态发展的关注，以达致各项诉求。其中为了平息由于社交媒体以“星星之火可以燎原”之势引发的抗议活动，埃及政府于2011年1月屏蔽脸书和推特，再切断互联网链接。另外，习惯以推特“治国”的美国前总统特朗普的推特账号，在美国总统选举后的2021年1月国会山庄骚乱后就被永久冻结。
推特的广告政策清楚阐明在全球范围内禁止推广政治内容，其立场是政治信息的传播应该靠努力赚取，而非花钱。不过，社交媒体龙头脸书在2018年的政治广告收入就高达22亿美元/93.5亿令吉。除此之外，美国Open Secrets官网发布有关2021年美国政治游说开销为37亿美元/157亿令吉。
如果马斯克成功入主推特，推特禁止推广政治内容政策是否会被废除或更改，肯定会是另一个焦点。由于美国宪法规定只有出生在美国的公民才能成为总统，这就排除了出生在南非的马斯克竞选总统的可能性。然而，这不否决马斯克成为2024年美国总统选举的造王者，他绝对可以动用手上媒体资源把属意候选人送上总统宝座。
《世界首富看中推特什么？》英文版：What does the world's richest man want from Twitter?
On April 4, Elon Musk, the world's richest man with networth of US $264.6b/RM1.12tn, belatedly disclosed to the SEC that he had acquired more than 73 million shares of Twitter, or about 9.1% of the company. The deal roiled Wall Street because Mr. Musk is also a prominent shareholder in Tesla Inc., the world's largest electric-car company by market capitalization.
Subsequently, Musk announced on April 14 his intention to take Twitter private for US $43 billion/RM182.9 billion in cash. Twitter's board then activated a "poison pill," or shareholder right plan, to prevent the acquirer from acquiring 15% of the company without prior approval. Aside from drawing the attention from the shareholders, the controversial deal has attracted the attention of regulators as well as Twitter users. Musk, the billionaire, is believed to be motivated by economic and political gains from the acquisition.
On the economic perspective, it is worth noting that Musk has a penchant for Twitter, despite there are different social media platforms. Founded in 2006, Twitter was the originator of microblogging site, 3 years ahead of China's Sina Weibo. The number of characters for Twitter post has increased from 140 to 280. The biggest difference from other social media is that Twitter is as easy to read as SMS before the mobile data era. According to one study, the average attention span of people in the era of "instant" culture has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2017. That is less than the average goldfish's attention span of 9 seconds. The short text also makes it possible for users to access Twitter from a mobile phone, in line with the 80% of users who use their phones to check their tweets.
According to tracking portal Social Blade, Musk's account ranks 10th among the 100 most followed Twitter, with an estimated 82 million followers. Other world celebrities in the top 10 included former U.S. presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, Canadian singer Justin Bieber and Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo.
According to the ranking, the celebrities on the list can be divided into politicians, businessmen and artists. They have an influence on the world and their tweets can be adopted and made as headlines by the media at any time. In comparison to the world's population, Twitter users would be the sixth largest country in the world, or equivalent to the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria. Twitter users earn higher average income than that of Facebook, Snap and WhatsApp, despite merely having 217 million active users. In other words, these users have more purchasing power to attract higher-end brands such as Louis Vuitton, Marseille and Hermes. That is especially important for Twitter, which derives more than 80% of its revenue from advertising.
In addition to casual users, global investors are also paying close attention to every tweet from the world's richest man. In 2020 alone, Tesla's stock rose 740%, thanks in part to Twitter. On the other hand, Musk, an advocate of cryptocurrency, has become a crypto guru on Twitter. Musk's tweet about meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin has catapulted it in 2021, leading many followers to gain from it. This led to an exponential snowballing of Musk's followers, creating a network effect that drew more people to Twitter. Wall Street analysts, in addition to monitoring macro data and Fed meeting results, also have to follow Musk's Twitter posts to track the money flow, which makes Musk's Twitter account a good indicator.
Effective propaganda tool
Twitter users will be most concerned if Musk succeeds in taking Twitter private, with privacy rules and content censorship especially in the spotlight. In a bipartisan system in the US, where Musk claims to be "half Democrat, half Republican" politically, he falls somewhere in between. He also said his intention to privatize Twitter is to promote absolute freedom of speech.
Do not forget the Arab Spring that happened in 2010 in the Middle East and North Africa region, is closely related to the use of social media. At that time, protesters used social media to organize protests for and against the government, spread information about the events, and raise local and global awareness of developments to meet various demands. In January 2011, the Egyptian government blocked the access to Facebook and Twitter, and cut off access to the Internet, in an effort to quell protests that social media. The Twitter account of the former U.S. President Donald Trump, who used to run a country on Twitter, was permanently suspended after the Capitol Hill riots in January 2021 right following the U.S. presidential election.
Twitter's advertising policy clearly states a global ban on political content promotion, taking the position that political message reach should be earned, not bought. However, social media giant Facebook alone made US $2.2 billion/RM9.35 billion in political advertising revenue in 2018. In addition, according to the US Open Secrets website, the US spent $3.7 billion/RM15.7 billion on political lobbying in 2021.
If Musk is successful, another focus will surely be whether Twitter's policy that prohibits political content promotion will be repealed or amended. Since the US Constitution states that only US-born citizens can become president, that rules out The South African-born Musk from running for president. However, that does not deny Musk’s role as the kingmaker in the 2024 US presidential election, and he can definitely use his media resources at his disposal to send his favorite candidate to the White House.
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