Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt
Twitter is still feeling aftershocks from Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s decision to take a 9.2% stake in the platform.
On Monday, Twitter CEO Paral Agrawal posted a note to let everyone know that Musk would no longer be taking a board role, a move that Agrawal had announced the previous week.
Just before midday UTC on Thursday, Telegraph technology editor James Titcomb shared a rumor that Elon had offered to buy Twitter outright for $54.20 a share, considered by some a cheeky weed reference. (Twitter shares were trading at a shade under $47 earlier today.)
A few minutes later, Musk confirmed it.
Later that day, Musk appeared at Ted2022 in Vancouver, Canada, where he shared his priorities for Twitter, which include hosting the code on GitHub, and cracking down on spam.
Musk wasn’t the only crypto-savvy billionaire talking Twitter last week. Among them was Tron CEO Justin Sun, who tweeted support of substantial changes to the platform.
I believe @Twitter is far from unleashing its full potential, thus I am offering $60 per share to take the platform private. But we fully support the reform initiatives of @elonmusk and would love to see Twitter becoming crypto-native and Web3 friendly.
— H.E. Justin Sun 🅣🌞🇬🇩 (@justinsuntron) April 14, 2022
Sun also tweeted about how he envisions an “offshore” Twitter that is more “neutral and less U.S.-centric.”
Others were less effusive. Dogecoin co-creator Jackson Palmer saw a sinister side to Musk’s potential takeover.
It takes some pretty impressive mental gymnastics to associate any type of “freedom” with the richest man in the world initiating a hostile takeover and forcing one of the largest public social media platforms private.
— Jackson Palmer (@ummjackson) April 14, 2022
Meanwhile, FTX exchange co-founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried laid out a vision in which Twitter could be decentralized and monetized using Web3 tech. Bankman-Fried proposed Twitter could charge a cent for tweets, while also hosting ads on the user interface and using that revenue to pay network fees.
3) Monetization comes in two forms:
a) tweet level; the underlying protocol charges something per message. At ~500m tweets/day, $0.01/tweet would replace half of Twitter’s revenue; $0.001/tweet would replace their profit.
b) UI level; the UI could monetize as well.
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) April 14, 2022
On a related note, Block CEO and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey had a brief spat with Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev, who was just minding his own business riffing on Dogecoin, long a Musk favorite. The exchange ended with Tenev inviting Dorsey to buy BTC on Robinhood.
Elsewhere
On Tuesday, YouTube personality and professional boxer/wrestler Logan Paul announced a new NFT project.
Twitter user Zackxbt (@zachxbt) replied by hitting Paul with allegations over a rug pull on a previous drop. (A rug pull is when a project solicits funds from the public, then disappears suddenly with the funds without fulfilling its promises, typically a token drop.)
Twitter user Cryptavali (@cryptavali), who claims to be “head of NFTs” at Degen Finance, had a joke at the expense of Paul’s already tarnished reputation.
“It all ties, to my entire life.”
*Goes on a 3 month vacation using rugged funds from previous projects taking Polaroids to use in a new rug.*
— çгчpтåvэłî (@cryptaveli) April 12, 2022
Finally, on Wednesday, CBD entrepreneur and proud single mother of three Amanda Goetz explained why she doesn’t attend most crypto events.
I’ve had multiple women DM me abt Bitcoin week last week sharing their accounts of sexual assault
I no longer go to crypto events for this reason (unless hosted by women)
What is the solution? How can we make women feel safe at male dominated events?
I want to hear from men. pic.twitter.com/rhs7hzOW0J
— Amanda Goetz (@AmandaMGoetz) April 12, 2022
She welcomed others to share similarly horrific stories, asking, “What is the solution? How can we make women feel safe at male dominated events?”
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Source: https://decrypt.co/98038/this-week-on-crypto-twitter-elon-musk-other-billionaires-imagine-transforming-twitter
