It has rallied the support of other major shareholder such as Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (possibly not the best ally if it the contest turns on who is “defending democracy” since the Saudis have never been especially keen on the idea), and may well adopt a poison pill defence to protect its independence.
It promises to be nail-biting for the participants, and a lot of fun for the rest of us. There is a problem, however, and it is far from a minor one. Tesla may well be a casualty of the battle.
Taking control of Twitter will be hugely contentious. The company is not going to go down without a fight. To win control, Musk will have to spend the next few months locked up with his bankers, lawyers and PR campaigners figuring out how to win over the shareholders.
It is not just that it will be expensive – the $40bn or so it will end up costing won’t make a massive dent in his estimated $240bn fortune even though he will have to sell some Tesla shares to fund it – it will also be very time-consuming.
At a time when Tesla should be seizing the opportunity gifted to it by a soaring oil price, and an energy crisis, to drive home its dominance of the electric vehicle industry its founder is distracting himself with a quixotic pursuit of what is, comparatively, a minor business. It is hard to believe that Tesla is not going to suffer from that. Every company needs someone in charge, and Musk is going to be absent for months.
Next, Twitter is a fiercely controversial space. The technical term in clinical psychology for its average user is “batsh!&t crazy”. Most social media might be pernicious, but they are also relatively harmless.
Facebook is mainly used to keep up with friends and families, Instagram to post pictures of what everyone is having for brunch, Snapchat for teens to flirt nervously with each other, and WhatsApp to text your Mum.
Twitter is the place where the world congregates for bitter political fights. It is characterised by a hysterical form of left-wing virtue signalling where anyone mildly to the right of Lenin is dismissed as a Nazi.
