Billionaires eye parallel media universe

Elon Musk doesn't seem to have much of a vision for how to actually run Twitter, if his takeover bid succeeds. He's not alone. A small group of tech moguls believe America is in the midst of what they call a "free speech" crisis, and they're investing time and money to change the terms of public discourse. But so far, they've made more headlines than progress. Just hours after announcing his bid, Musk took the stage at the TED conference in Vancouver, Canada, to explain his takeover rationale. In doing so, he gave Twitter's board of directors ample reason to reject his bid. Instead of delivering a distinct plan for Twitter's future, Musk gave meandering and sometimes contradictory answers about how he would address Twitter's content moderation challenges. He said Twitter should use human judgment to evaluate free speech — while also saying Twitter shouldn't regulate users' speech, except to follow the laws of the countries it operates in. He said he wants Twitter to hold on to as many current shareholders as possible once it goes private. Later he asserted: "I don't care about the economics" that would be paramount to many of those shareholders. Social media companies are increasingly willing to remove certain types of content, and ban those who post it, after years of casting themselves as neutral platforms. This change has triggered an opposite reaction by individuals who prefer the earlier approach.