Elon Musk’s plans for Twitter leave The Project’s hosts baffled

One of The Project’s co-hosts expressed her confusion on Sunday night as she sought to understand Elon Musk’s latest ambitious plans.

One of The Project’s co-hosts, Rachel Corbett, expressed her confusion at billionaire Elon Musk’s ambitions for Twitter as the program discussed his high profile takeover of the social media company on Sunday night.

Mr Musk, the boss of Tesla and SpaceX, confirmed he had completed the contentious $68 billion deal to buy Twitter last week.

“There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising. Most of it is wrong,” he wrote in a letter to Twitter’s advertisers.

He said it was “important to the future of civilisation” to have “a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner”.

Elon Musk. Picture: Frederic J. Brown/AFP

Speaking on The Sunday Project, Corbett said she was “fascinated” by Mr Musk’s decision to buy Twitter and baffled by his plans.

“I am just like, ‘Why are you doing this?’” she said.

“I can’t work it out. Because it is a company really in debt. Also, we are at the stage where we’ve all decided that social media needs more control around it.

“That is the general consensus. It certainly is if you are a business which relies on advertising, which Twitter does. Eighty-nine per cent of its revenue comes from ads, and advertisers don’t want to be anywhere near the cesspit that social media can become.

“And there is a real risk that Elon will step it back to even worse than it was before.”

Corbett brought up Mr Musk’s suggestion that Twitter could be split into different “strands”. For example, it could feature a “player versus player” version where verified accounts would be free to argue with each other, and a separate version for anonymous accounts without significant content moderation.

Something like this makes sense

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2022

“I don’t understand how that can work in an environment where you need to make money as a business. Because advertisers won’t touch that,” said Corbett.

“And any idea that it’s currently overregulated is crazy. It’s already a cesspit,” co-host Lisa Wilkinson interjected.

Corbett also expressed her hope that former US president Donald Trump, who was kicked off Twitter in the wake of the January 6, 2021 riot in Washington D.C., will not be allowed back on the platform.

Mr Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol Building on that date in an attempt to stop the certification of his election defeat to Joe Biden.

The outgoing president had spent the preceding months spreading debunked conspiracy theories on social media, claiming without evidence that the election had been stolen from him via widespread fraud.

Mr Trump still insists he won the election, two years after his defeat.

Former US president Donald Trump. Picture: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP

“They can’t bring Trump back on, can they? Please,” Corbett said.

“I think they can,” quipped Hamish Macdonald.

“But it seems like a billionaire who says, ‘You know, I’ve got all this money, I want to do something funny. How amusing it would it be to bring Trump back on.’ Without any real understanding or consideration of the implications,” said Corbett.

On Friday, Mr Musk said Twitter would form a “content moderation council” with “widely diverse viewpoints”. He stressed that “no major content decisions” or “account reinstatements” will happen before the council convenes.

His statement came as The Wall Street Journal reported major brands had threatened to pause their advertising on Twitter if it reinstated Mr Trump’s account.

The former president, for his part, wrote on his own social media platform, Truth Social, that he was “very happy” Mr Musk had taken over Twitter.

He said the platform was now in “sane hands” and would no longer be run by “radical left lunatics and maniacs that truly hate our country”.

Mr Trump went on to claim, falsely, that Truth Social had been registering “bigger numbers than all other platforms, including TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and the rest”.

Elon Musk. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP

The Twitter logo, seen on the outside of its headquarters in San Francisco. Picture: Constanza Hevia/AFP

“I think (Musk) must have had a quick look at the books when he arrived, because he immediately – his first messages were to advertisers. Because he’s realised he needs that money bad,” said Wilkinson.