Elon Musk says he doesn’t care about the economics of buying Twitter but wants to create a public platform that is “maximally trusted and comprehensive at scale”

• Elon Musk said he doesn’t care about the economics of buying Twitter at TED2022.

• He said he wanted to get the platform because it would be important to “the civilization of the future.”

• Musk defended the inclusiveness and credibility of Twitter, adding that it was “not a way to make money.”

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said he doesn’t care about the economics of acquiring Twitter.

His comments came after he filed a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 14 that showed the billionaire offered to buy the social media platform for $43 billion. “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I’m going to open it up,” Musk said in a letter to Twitter Chairman Brett Taylor listed in the SEC filing.

Musk said his interest in buying the company was not for financial reasons but to help the interests of civilization.

When asked why he made his billion-dollar bid in an interview last week at TED2022, Musk told TED’s Chris Anderson, “I think it’s very important to have an inclusive arena for free speech.”

According to Musk, it is essential that people have “the reality and the realization that they are able to speak freely within the limits of the law.” He accomplished this as a “de facto town square,” Anderson said on Twitter.

Musk added that the offer also came from a “strong and intuitive feeling” that having a public platform “ultimately reliable and broadly inclusive is critical to the future of civilization.”

“It’s not a way to make money,” Musk said, adding, “I don’t care about the economy at all.”

During the conversation with Anderson, Musk did not claim that he would be the ideal leader for Twitter. He noted that there would be “a few mistakes” if he were to get on the podium.

Musk emphasized that he was not sure if he would ever be able to buy the company. However, a Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory filing on Thursday showed that Musk had secured funding commitments totaling $46.5 billion to buy Twitter.

The story continues

Twitter has publicly acknowledged the deal offer but has yet to respond further.

On April 14, the company said it would “carefully review the proposal to determine a course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the company and all of Twitter’s shareholders.”

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