After 6 months of stalling, it’s finally happening. For those who seek light, this is a loss. For those who seek victory, this is a win. There is no way that the left can spin this into a positive. The priority is now damage control. Between this, high inflation, and the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the left is having a terrible year. Elon and Kanye are arguably the two most influential people in the world now. The culture war divide between the woke, who oppose Elon and Kanye, and the anti-woke has never been clearer. And it’s going to intensify, especially come 2024 and if Trump’s account is restored, which it certainly will be (if he rejoins is another matter, but I think he will). If you thought the past year has been contentious online, multiply that by 3-5x.
Elon knows that if he does not reinstate Trump that it would be a huge betrayal of the 150+ million of his and Trump’s combined followers (ignoring double counting) and hurt his investment. Having Trump unbanned means more engagement, more ad clicks/views. Trump and Elon have formed the biggest bulwark against woke-ism online, plus Rogan and Kanye. Just to think as recently as early 2018 none of these people, except Trump, had anywhere close to as much influence as they do today. If Bezos wanted he could join too by tweeting memes and anti-woke commentary and almost be as popular as Musk, but he has stayed on the sidelines.
This is a bigger story than even the Russia invasion of Ukraine, because of more uncertainty and possibly greater impact. When Russia invaded, I knew it would be dragged out with neither side securing victory, and would not escalate to worldwide-involvement or the use of weapons of mass destruction (and I was correct). The implications for Elon buying twitter are unknown but I think possibly greater, with the ability to affect elections and public sentiment, which in turn can affect leadership and thus policy. If I had to estimate, the odds of Trump (or whoever is the 2024 GOP presidential nominee) winning have gone up by 5% due to Elon buying Twitter. This may not seem like much, but given how close elections are, this is a lot.