Elon Musk Buys Twitter

the world. We've got this developing story covered from all angles over the course of the hour, a new chapter in tech history. But at the same time that the Musk deal is going through, he tweets another insult at the SEC, calling those who run it shameless puppets over his ongoing Tesla feud. What all these jabs might mean when regulators get a look at this deal, And aside from all the money that's being spent on Twitter, the other big question, of course, is what happens to everyone

who's been banned from it, including former President Trump. How exactly does Elon Musk defined free speech will wait into the thorniest part of this debate that has perplexed perplexed tech platforms for decades. We're gonna get to all of that in a moment, but first Elon Musk gets his way, agreeing to a deal to take Twitter private for forty four billion dollars. Each investor will receive fifty four dollars

and twenty cents for every Twitter share they own. I want to stick with Twitter and bring in insider intelligence, principal analyst Jasmine Edinburgh, as well as Bloomberg's Michelle Davis. Michelle talked to us about the unknowns at this point. We've got Twitter earnings coming up, for example, in just a few days. Is there a chance Elon Musk could see those numbers and say, hey, now, thanks. So the unknowns that we have at this point are many, um,

but it is official. There is a deal at What we don't know is this twenty one billion dollar equity check that we just talked about. How much of that will at the end of the day be officially from Musk, and how much of that will take the form of,

you know, other equity partners coming in. It's our understanding that Musk is speaking with other potential equity partners, uh, and that it wasn't you know, necessary for them to have that lined up before they made the steel public and that things obviously materialized so quickly over the weekends that that could be part of why we don't see that. Yet. Another question that we have is, uh, what happens from

a regulatory perspective. We've gotten lots of questions around you know, does the industry become more regulated if he if one of the equity partners is someone from outside of the United States, is that open this up to uh, you know, regulatory scrutiny from from regulators that are not based in the US. And then there's also the question of, uh,

do Twitter shareholders approve this steal? At this point, we saw from the press release that Twitter's entire board unanimously approved the deal, but it is subject to a shareholder vote, and so we're going to be hearing more from shareholders in the coming days to see to see what their views are. Now. Twitter has said it's not going to have an earnings call this week, but will report its

latest numbers as planned Jasmine. One of the many opens questions here is what kind of business model does e La Musk think Twitter should have. He sort of hinted he wants to move away from an ad revenue business model, and if so, what does that mean? Does that mean subscription and will that really be a profitable engine? Yeah? Absolutely, Speaking of unknowns, one really big unknown is, of course, what happens to Twitter's AD business UM as a result

of this deal. As you said, Musk is a proponent of making Twitter a subscription based service rather than an ad supportive one. But the problem here is that there's plenty of research that shows that consumers still prefer to view free content and exchange for ads and subscribe to a service, and making Twitter a subscription service would radically change its business model. It's worth noting that this isn't

something that would happen overnight. There's some talk that Musk would need Twitter's AD revenues in order to keep it afloat as the transition UM continues. And it's also worth noting that this is happening at a time that Twitter

has really seen a rebound in AD growth. UM. We'll have to wait until Thursday to see if that continued in Q one, but at least UM for one, it reported growth in its AD revenues and an insider intelligence UM in our latest forecast that was made before this announcement, we were expecting Twitter's AD revenues to grow by another twenty five percent this year. What are you expecting this deal to How do you expect this deal to impact

user growth? Well? Twitter has already been struggling and bringing in new users, And I think one part of this whole Musk saga that has been so interesting is that Twitter is a platform that really thrives on news and uncertainty and even controversy. So there's a chance that all of this playing out really could have helped Twitter's engagement. Of course that's not something that we we'll see in the earnings call on Thursday. Is that um happened after

Q one? But UM, it's possible that Twitter is still struggling. It's actually likely that Twitter is still struggling. I'm not expecting to see massive user growth considering the user growth that it reported last quarter UM in monetizeable daily active users. Michelle, can you walk us through the next steps? You know this deal isn't done. Um, it'll happen sometime this year, Uh, as far as they've told us. But is there anything between now and clothes that could take this deal off

the rails? So a bunch of things could happen between now and let's say the end of the year. Next steps for I guess the Elon Musk Twitter deal that we have on the table right now is uh. If Elon Musk wants to he can take out the equity commitment that he has for twenty one billion dollars and replace it with commitments from other people or you know, actual equity from other people. The deal also needs to

get regulatory approval, It needs to get approved by shareholders. Um. And then there is always the possible pity that another bidder comes in. Now, it's our interesstanding that there is a reverse breakup in the scale, which means basically Elon Musk has to pay a certain amount of money if he decides to walk away from the dealer if it falls apart for certain reasons. Uh. And so if another bidder were to come in, he wouldn't owe that. But there is you know, there is the possibility that another

bidder could still come in here. Uh. So yeah, we'll be watching that interesting now, Jasmine, I'm curious what you make of Elon Musk's stance on free speech and how you expect that to impact users and add revenues. If he evolves the service to be you know, more liberal when it comes to moderation. Not in a political sense, but you know what I mean. Um, you know what does that mean for advertisers specifically? Yeah? Absolutely, I mean.

Musk has said that he wants to make Twitter into a free speech haven, which would likely reverse a lot of the guardrails that Twitter has instituted in order to check the health of its platform, its users, and the brands that advertise their Um, you know, doing so might make a lot of risk advert risk adverse advertisers really wary about advertising on Twitter. There's always the chance of misinformation and disinformation spreading when content is less moderated. Um. So,

you know, if they are to keep this ad business. Um, it is something that Musk will have to do to figure out how to balance this idea of less content moderation with creating a brand safe environment for advertisers. So many questions that need answers, which will only come over time. Jasmine Enberg of Insider Intelligence Bloomberg's Michelle Davis, who's covering the deal all angles of it for us, Thank you both.

Coming up Musk taking Twitter private almost a decade to the day after Twitter became a public company, Does this raise any regulatory concerns? Given Musks run ins with the sec or policymakers in the US and beyond paying attention well to have that discussion next this Bloomberg while here we are the offers accepted. Ultimately, no one thought that

they would settle on that price. The biggest criticism of Twitter over the balance of the last decade or so the company has had as a public company has been that, frankly, they haven't innovated very much and the platform is essentially the same as it was. I think the biggest question is just how did the Twitter board buy into this? Ultimately they had no backup. This tells you how weak

the company was. I'm more interested in knowing who's going to run the company, what are the priorities going to be, where are they going to be investing, and how the platform is going to change. And I'm excited to see what he's going to do with the company when it is private. Um, he is a visionary and uh and I'm excited to see how it plays out. Back to the story of the day, shares a Twitter up almost six percent, What does it really mean for share holders?

And will just raise the eyebrows of lawmakers and policymakers. I want to bring in Natasha Lamb of our DNA Capital now to discuss an activist investor. Of course, Natasha, if you're a shareholder today, what does this really mean for you? What's going through your head? Well, I mean, one question is whether the Twitter's board is leaving money on the table. Um the stock was over, you know, seventy dollars last July sixty six in October um, so

that's a big question. But you know, I think the bigger, the bigger concern for us, Our main concern is the consolidation of Musk's power. Um. That's not to say anything about who he is as a person, but the simple fat that you've got the world's richest man in charge of the world's biggest megaphone. We don't know what his

intentions are other than a blanket statement to uphold free speech. Uh. And you know, we've often been critical of companies that have the same person as see EO and chairman right, because it creates an echo chamber of fact where divergent perspectives aren't considered. But this is even worse. It's akin to a kid packing up his toys, going home to play by himself. Um. And unfortunately, the consequences of this game are much greater than elon Musk. So what are

the potential consequences here? Do you think this will raise the attention of regulators, specifically the SEC, potentially other regulatory bodies here in the United States, and what about regulators around the world. I think I think that it will, I mean in some in some ways, um, with the company going private and in a big concern you know

for us, is that it will be shielded from regulatory scrutiny. Um, it will be shielded from the impact of investors like Argena Capital that you know, we lend perspective on e s G or environmental, social and governance practices that the company may otherwise ignore. Um. The problem is that the impact of Twitter, it's not limited to Musk's winds. Um. It can have severe consequences on our society and our democracy. Um. You know, the insurrection on the capital that's just one example.

And so I think that there will be regulatory um consequences, but they're not going to play out the same way that they have right rolling out the carpet um bringing Uh, you know, Twitter's CEO in front of Congress, not that

kind of regulation. The space probably needs some regulation, but you know, the complexity of these issues is so profound, and you know, we've really been pushing for human and civil rights expertise to be built into the board, to be built into business strategies, so that the company itself is taking on these issues, not waiting for regulators regulators to do it um and we had that proposed at the company's annual meeting for this ing, although that conversation

now appears to move well, and now Elon Musk will be taking on the complexity of those issues with no shareholders to answer to Twitter as a private company making these very complex, consequential decisions that impact public discourse. What's your sense of how he will take on that challenge. I mean, I think it's a big question mark. But you know, if you go back to when Dorsey was running the company, of big criticism is that he was distracted. He was distracted by being the CEO at Square now

block Um and Musk is running multiple companies. He's got Tesla, he's got SpaceX, the boring company which is drilling holes under l A. He's got neuralalink, which is linking you know, the human brain to computers. Um. And honestly, how many hours this must have to spend on this um you know, in in my opinion, Twitter is too important to be a hobby and really choirs um, the full time attention

of who whomever is meeting it. Right. Jack Dorsey just left the company, you know, potentially barred because he had to really big jobs. I want to go back to this question for shareholders. Do you really think they're getting a potentially a bad deal here and leaving money on the table. I mean, Twitter shares haven't been at seventy dollars for some time, and and and longtime investors have been waiting a while for any kind of momentum to

pick up in the price. I mean, I I hear you there, um, you know, but I mean the company was at the stop was at sixty six in October. Um. And you know, as as you heard from a previous analyst, Twitter has been growing out revenue. The name of the game for Twitter was to grow subscribers. Um. I'm very interested to see, you know what Musk does with this, if if he does indeed bring it to a subscription model.

You know, that's obviously can limit user growth. UM and and you know, and UM, ways, from a social perspective, if we're thinking about Twitter as the de facto town square, it could further isolate users because, UM, who wants to pay for an increasingly toxic platform. What do you think this? You know, I know you're you've got your longtime activist investor, including in Facebook. What do you think Elon Musk buying Twitter means for Facebook? UM? I think that it is.

I think that it's it's sad to see um sort of the the Emperor's of social media, if you will. UM, we've had a you know, law for a long time, have been critical UM of Mark Zuckerberg's position and power, given his you know, fourteen percent ownership in Facebook, but also his role as CEO and chairman. And here you have Elon Musk potentially owning, um the entire company and

being able to do whatever he wants with it. I mean, there is a history of billionaires buying media companies, and you have to ask why, UM, you know, going back to hearsts and UM, look at Bezos buying the Washington Post.

This isn't this isn't something new, UM, but again it really brings up those concerns of the consolidation of power um, especially when there's such a huge impact on our public discourse, our democracy, human and civil rights and fruit speech right and Bezos famously said he was gonna be hands off at the Washington Post. Here Elon Musk is buying this huge media asset, saying basically the opposite, He's going to

be very involved. Natasha lamb Are the Capital managing partner, thank you as always for joining us in the process of sealing a deal to buy Twitter. Elon Musk also chose to use the platform to once again complain about the SEC, specifically the San Francisco office over taking Tessa Private, calling them quote shameless puppets of Wall Street short seller sharks, and adding once again that's why he's lost all respect

for them. Let's talk about the SEC and what will it will play in this Twitter deal with Blue Brigs. Lydia Bud who joins us now from Washington, Just so curious what folks inside the SEC are thinking right now? Does the SEC actually have a jurisdiction over this deal? Lydia To a degree, the SEC's role is really one of disclosures so when the transaction proxy is filed, they'll get a chance to really push Twitter for um clarifying

a lot of the terms of this transaction. So what exactly what kind of information could the SEC request here and how could it influence the deal? So they'll be looking, they'll be really scrutinizing the terms of the transaction. That could be everything from the financing to how sort of the deal came together, but also any unusual provisions such as the reverse termination fee. Whatever the SEC feels like needs more disclosure, more transparency for Twitter shareholders to be

fully informed ahead of their vote later this year. So let's talk about potentially broader questions here. You know, potentially the SEC has some sway. You also have Elon Musk, a single person, uh, you know, being in charge of influencing so many different now critical parts of US infrastructure, whether it is electric cars or space or now potentially social media. Even though these aren't necessarily overlapping areas, could the power he has over so many different important parts

of business in the world economy make a difference. You know, Emily,

I think you're right and everyone else is too. To really focus on the power that this acquisition could bring to the world's which is man to have control over this, you know, very powerful communications platform in d C. I think that that's going to translate into a renewed debate on social media's role as you know, this public forum that Musk is talking about, and whether or not there's need for more liability uh and what role content uh

moderation plays in kind of this the free speech ecosystem, Lydia, You've been coming in the SEC for a long time. How how do you think that the history between Musk and the SEC is going to play out here? Tweets like the one we saw today, which is not unusual. You know, it would be interesting to see how Musk comments or does not as this deal makes its way through the regulatory process. But beyond that, I don't want

to speculate too much. And can you remind us where the SEC is right now on the Tesla going private dispute? There is you know, another lawsuit ongoing dragging back up this tweet from still lives on. Uh. That that's right. I've heard various uh, you know, I've read the same news that some of our my colleagues have reported here about whether the SEC kind of cracks that wide open again, or maybe looks to bring some new cases there. So

we'll we'll see what the future holds for that. Alright, lady Abu Bloomberg News who covers the sec for us? Thank you coming up. Musk says he hopes even his worst critics remain on Twitter because that's what free speech means. Will explore what Elon Musk's version of moderation might actually mean for the service and public discourse. This is Bloomberg Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology and Eamily chang in San Francisco. On April fourteen, Elon Musk offered to purchase Twitter for

forty three billion dollars. Eleven days later, he's made that deal a reality. Here's what he had to say the day he made that original offer about how he views the platform. M I think it's very important for that will be an inclusive arena for free speech where oh yeah, so yeah, um Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square. Um so uh, it's just really important that people have the both the reality and the perception, uh, that they are able to speak freely within the bounds

of the low. So what exactly is free speech? The Elon Muskway Bloomberg, Senior executive editor for Global Tech, Brad Stone with me, Now, this is the biggest open question. What exactly does he mean by free speech and how exactly does he plan and to allow that to flourish on a private service. That is the question, and it has to be viewed within the context of a larger debate about social media that has been happening for years.

Conservatives tend to think that the big social media platforms Twitter, Facebook, etcetera. Have too many rules, the algorithms are too opaque, bands of users are too draconian, while liberals those on the left tend to think that the social platforms aren't doing enough to fight hate speech and disinformation, etcetera. With what Elon will you just heard from Elon sounds right, like,

you know, very very positive, very straightforward. But I think part of the reason why this acquisition is so polarizing is it does seem to it does It does seem like he is siding with the conservatives and saying he wants to be more permissive of speech and perhaps even the kinds of misinformation that have made Twitter such a difficult form. But even in the town Square there are consequences if you there are laws, right, there's enforcement of those laws. How will Elon Musk? What are the rules?

Elon Musk's way, And that's exactly the question, right. He hasn't provided any specificity to to the to the otherwise sort of laudable statements. And so what I wrote about this morning was the status of at Donald Trump with almost nine million Twitter followers, what is he going to do? He has expressed some kind of skepticism of a permanent band, and so I think we're likely to see Donald Trump if he if he wants to be told Fox News he doesn't want to go back to Twitter today. I

find that hard to believe. If he comes back to the service, you know what, what kind of reaction will that get? What are the limits even for a public figure that's that's trodden over them in the past. You point out that Jeff Bezos, when he bought the Washington Post famously said he's hands off, He's not going to have any sway over editorial decision. Elon Musk is basically saying the opposite here. He's going to be very involved, especially if you look at how involved he is at

Tesla and that's base x um. You know, what does it mean for a single person to have such sway over a platform that is so influential over public discourse. The comparison what what the Washington Post is interesting and that was a two million dollar deal pennies in comparison back into thus in thirteen, Bezos said he wouldn't get involved. He he largely hasn't in the editorial direction of the Post. I liken this not just to a financial takeover of Twitter,

but to a political takeover. He's coming in with a very uh specific ideology and saying he's going to operated differently. Is it more like a Murdoch moment? Yeah? I think I I compared it to to Murdock's takeover the posts in the Wall Street Journal, where he's bringing some some politics in and promising a departure from the current way that the company and the platform is administered. All right,

red Stone, thank you. As always, I want to continue this conversation with Teconomy founder Javier Kirkpatrick and Chamber of Progress founder and CEO Adam Kovakova. David, I want to start with you. Since we've been talking about this now, it feels like almost every day since April fourteen. Now it's official. Um, what about Twitter is going to change under ELM Musk. Well, you know, actually I thought what

Brad just said was very interesting. And if you really ask yourself, is this a financial takeover or a political takeover or both? If it's both, I am not as worried about the free speech issues, um, because obviously the business will require significant moderation. It's not just a matter of obeying law. Users expect a more or less safe

environment in which to function. But you know, in my macro response to the whole deal is that it's probably a good thing, cautious optimism because interestingly, regarding Facebook, which as you know, I think about a lot, I've said for a long time that the best thing for Facebook would be if Suckerberg found a way to take at private so he could make the difficult changes, which he doesn't even seem to want to make, sadly, But taking

Twitter private, taking any company private, as Michael Dell proof, is a way to really do difficult things to the market might not let you do. And I I think some of the suggestions he has and most notably authenticating all humans, which we could talk about in a minute, more detail if you want, uh, could be very positive changes. We'll get to that in a second. Adam, I want to know how you would answer that question. Do you believe Elon Musk has the public's best interest as heart

Twitter users interests at heart or Elon Musk's interests at heart? Well, I think we'll see it. It's an open question. I think he every platform, Twitter included starts off with a bent towards free expression. That's what he's stated pretty clearly. The problem is that one percent of users who make a mess of the place right with spam, harassment, hate speech,

what some people call lawful but awful speech. And the problem is that if you don't do any thinking about that kind of speech, you drive away you're happy, productive, responsible users, and you turn off your advertisers who really don't want their ads appearing next to hateful or harassing content. Like every community wants both a generally free environment um but also police force to enforce the rules, and that that's what most people want on social media. That comes

through in pulling. People want more transparency for expression, but they also want clear content moderation, and they don't want to see junk. And I think he'll he'll see that. Well, uh renee to rest uh put this. I believe you know very eloquently where she said, Elon Musk is equal parts innovator, equal parts potentially ConTroll even though I think

we can all agree Elon Musk is incredibly innovative. Is he innovative enough to figure out free speech in a way that works for everyone when so many people, so many massive companies that have come before, have not been

able to Adam Well, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, frankly, one of the challenges about this is that Twitter is such an important service for policymakers, for newsmakers that whoever runs the company, whether it's Musk or whether it's Jack Dorsey or Dicoslo before them, have found that sort of politicians working the refs over content policies to be a huge headache. And I suspect once that initial enthusiasm passes,

he may find that too. May be relatively easy to you know, to reinstate Trump as as Brad said, But what happens next time there's a January six type of man? What happens when Nancy Pelosi calls because she doesn't like a call they've made. So these are calls that no social media ceo relish is making. But unfortunately it's it's part of the job. Now. Elon Musk loves polls. If only he could do a poll saying do you want

me to own Twitter? Yes or no, we would know how many Twitter users are actually in favor of this. Certainly there's a huge contingent of people that thinks, uh, and including the Twitter board, Uh, this is this is the right thing to do. Um. David, you mentioned the idea of authenticating users. What exactly would that accomplish. Well, let's remember Twitter has never required users to really be anything.

You could call yourself anything, you could be anyone, and there was really a lot of opacity in terms of who was actually speaking. Of course, some people identified themselves clearly on their Twitter profile, etcetera, but that was not

a requirement of the service. Facebook, on the other hand, has always had that um and even though it's been diverged from some degree, it really did to some extent maintain civility in the service relatively UM and I think that could be a more civil conversation just by making that change on Twitter in itself, where you always knew who was speaking, because anonymity is one of the real scourges of of disinformation and causes a way of successful disinformation.

You don't know who's speaking, people can mask themselves, etcetera. Uh So, I think that's a very positive thing. But I want to just keep going back to this question, does sect does Does Must really want to make money from this deal or is he? Is he considering this a play thing? You'd think with this kind of expenditure, he's got to make a good business. If he really

has to make a good business. I think these agonizing questions everybody's asking about moderation will be settled by the marketplace, and they will be just settled in the way that we were just hearing. He will have to moderate just like every other social media does because that is what users and the community wants. And maybe SpaceX is an interesting comparison there because he has kept that as a private company. But we don't know what the financials look like. Adam.

I'm curious to hear from you, given you know you running in these Washington policy circles. Is this going to raise the eyebrows of policy makers? Do you foresee any potential regulatory issues down the line? I don't foresee any issues, particularly with Um with the sale in terms of a review or anything like that. I think we've already seen that Republicans and Democrats are viewing this a little bit differently. I think in the last couple of weeks you've seen

Congressional Republicans cheering for must takeover of the company. Uh, perhaps because they think he's gonna allow Trump back on I think if you gave most Republicans and congress truth serum would probably say that Trump being on Twitter was better for Democrats and egg for Republicans. Um. But so I do think you'll see the continued working of the reps. That's always been true of social media. But I don't foresee significant regulatory issues. I do foresee that Muscle will

continue to poke at regulators like the SEC. That's been part of his history. And Paragua, the CEO of Twitter, is actually in the middle of an all hands meeting with employees right now. He's just said that the company will continue to operate as usual until the deal closes. We're getting headlines from the meeting now that no layoffs are currently planned, that stock grants will continue to vest.

But uh, there's gonna be a hiring freeze for now, David, you really curious how employees are taking this as I understand that there's been a huge contingent of people I'm not happy about this, and another contingentive paper people strongly in favor of Elon Musk. Also curious about Jack Dorsey and the role that he's played in this equation. We saw uh some uh you know, attention going back and

forth between Jack and Elon Musk. Jack changing his his official title to Blockhead, Elon Musk complimating that since saying that that that title is on fire, Jack responding that Elon Musk is the techno king. What has been the influence do you think of Jack Dorsey on this deal having left the company. It's it's a good thing to speculate about. My guess is that Jack, like me, is cautiously optimistic about what this could mean. But nobody can look at Elon Musk and not worry that something could

spin out of control in an unpredictable direction. And I'm sure Jack, who feels very deeply attached to a proprietary about Twitter, uh, wants to see his baby kept healthy. And but I also think he knows that there have been important changes that they have been prevented from making because it would potentially cause short term profit implications or or or revenue implications. And that is all going to

go away once the company's private. But can I just ask Adam a question though, because I wonder about the SEC. They still have to approve this transaction. Here's a guy who was accused and settled with them for securities fraud regarding tesla Um and didn't necessarily abide by the terms of the settlement um, And what is the possibility, as a Washington guru that maybe the SEC might think of him as potentially unsuitable unless certain conditions are put on

this transaction. It's not an anti trust issue, but they have the right to do whatever they want. Sure, it's not out of the question. And certainly SEC chair Gary Gensler has been not been shy about using his authority when it comes to, for example, the whole crypto industry. They haven't yet done this kind of thing, but I think it's very possible and and certainly to the extent that he could say, look, this is kind of my moment to extract Um some kind of conditions or concessions

I think that's I think that's very possible. And of course that's not the end of it, right because even in um in must Roll, as had Tesla, he's constantly tail tangling with regulators around safety and all these other questions, and there there's some important questions. So I don't think even the acquisition is even probably the end of of must Uh interaction with regulators around the around Twitter. Alright, well,

let's just run about the end of anything. We're gonna have to leave it there, David, and this is the beginning but something, if it's anything. Adam Govakovitch, thank you as well as David Kirkpatrick. We could debate this for hours. Appreciate you both joining us to Day to Way in time for our crypto report now, and I want to get back to elon Musk buying Twitter. He said he's wants to open source the algorithm. Could Twitter's future then

be decentralized and if so, what does that mean. Jack Maller, CEO of the digital payments platform Strike, and our crypto Contributortionally bostick with us now to discuss. Jack. I'm sure you have opinions about this as a Twitter user, but also as a business Twitter, I know is one of your customers. What's been your reaction to Elon Musk sealing the deal here making it official today? Ladies, Hello, Happy Monday. Thanks for having me. Um No, I'm very excited. I'm

very excited. I look up to Elon as an entrepreneur, as a businessman, and as someone that makes the world a better place. In my opinion, his existence has be net positive. And uh, I think I've always thought that an open payment standard that allows for natively digital physical settlement. That sounds crazy, but it's a cheaper, better, faster, more inclusive, inherently innovative payment standard. Uh. Suits Internet business is tremendously well.

It allows natively digital companies to enable native, natively digital payments. And I don't think we've ever seen a social network really exercise that muscle. And it seems like Elon has been hinting at it and I'm very, very, very very excited to see it come into reality hopefully Fingers crossed. Jack. You know, so many people don't realize that there's already

a relationship between Strike and Twitter. Twitter said last year that tipping with bitcoin would be made available over the Lightning network with you Guys, how far has that gone so far? And where else could it go? Now? Yeah, I think that over the last twelve months there's been a lot of belief and interest in this concept of creator economy. Is more and more of the creator world

lives now on the web. I kind of want to take a step back for a second, though, and revisit payments as a whole, payments as we know them today. How do you digitally move a piece of paper? How do you digitally move a rock? How do you digitally move a bar of gold? Trick question? You can't. And so all of the payments that are predicated on older assets are promises of future settlement. And that's where you get intomediaries like banks and card networks that facilitate these payments.

They make them really expensive, they make them really slow. They inhibit other people in the world that they don't serve from participating. For the first time ever, Guys, we have an asset, a physical, physical bear instrument that's digital. It's a mind blowing concept. How do you move a physical bitcoin digitally? What do you mean? That's part of how it works. And so not only can we do creator payments, Twitter can do micro payments. Twitter can enable

creators economy. Twitter could check out at a Starbucks if they're both on the Bitcoin Lightning Network. And so I think when you lower the barrier of entry, you to a physical bear instrument. You don't need to be issuing credit, you don't need to be promising debt, you don't need to be regulated to make payments and facilitate payments. So I think Twitter could do anything really now you work with the Lightning network that is very, very Bitcoin oriented.

But we're seeing Bitcoin and dogecoin rise on the back of these announcements, So what do you think about the potential for Bitcoin other currencies? Dogecoin We are seeing them drop a bit now as well. But you know, we all we have seen them, you know, rise on the

excitement of Elon Musk and Twitter. Yeah, you're seeing everything in the world rise on excitement because the Federal Reserve and other central banks are perverting risk haunts across all assets and it's scaring the dear life out of everybody. So everything is more appealing than holding dollars or just something that's going to bleed to death. And so I wouldn't take a lot of noteworthiness that Dogecoin is up, so is the couch in my living room over there?

Who cares? Bitcoin is a known monetary policy. A fixed supplied is the best asset ever. It's better at being a central bank and central banks. It's also better at being east of the visa. It's also better at being Western Union and Western Union. It's also better at being chased and chase. Why do I need to focus my

time on anything else. I think we have a lot of work to do on empowering the world with the greatest tool that will ever be invented, at least in my lifetime, And so I don't really get distracted by the noise. Whether my couch my living room is up a little bit or doge coin don't really matter to me because I don't know the dollars down. That's what

that means. That must be some couch jack. Jack Baller is always going to have you here on the Show's CEO of Stripe and Strike and our crypto contributors, thank you both. Delon Musk seiling the deal to buy Twitter. Twitter CEO Paragua Wal has been talking to employees at a Twitter all hands meeting over the last our lot of questions there are at Ludlow has been getting some details on what paragu Agerwal has said and a lot

of questions. Be kind of easy. Expect no layoffs currently land there will be a freeze on hiring, a lot of questions. There's been a lot of questions over the last ten days, from inside as I sponging to what happens to equity conversation R s us. A lot of Twitter workers want to know how does a private company actually work? And you know, the management team have said what you'd expect them to say in this set of circumstances.

He says Twitter is going to continue to operate as normal until a deal is done, whatever normal is in this context. They've said that they want this deal to happen before the end of the year. Are expected to happen before the end of the year. How soon could it happen? How fast could could this steal get actually get done? It would take time to take a company private. There's not a lot of past precedent for a company

at this scale. You know, the attention quickly turns to when does Elon must get to implement changes that he's proposed, or how does that work? Is he literally walking into Market Street, into the offices and saying, hey, guys, I'm here, I've got some ideas. Let's talk about it. You know, inside as I spoken to a lot of them are positive about it. I think you cover this in the show. They welcome his ideas. They just don't get the hierarchy. How does this company now work? Does Paragaga yll stay

as CEO? Exactly? Well, we've seen Elon Musk's CEO of Twitter stay on CPEO of SpaceX have some management issues with topics X at his other companies, So what does that mean for current executives at Twitter? And finally, there are questions about whether that's twenty one billion dollars of exity financing, does he actually still bring partners in and who are those people? Are they kind of like minded activist investors that want to see the same changes because

that could change the dynamic of the deal. What are the chances of steel falls through? Won't put a number on it, would say lots of people are confident there won't be any regulatory problems going forward based on the notes we've seen really in the last hour. Right, all right, so many unanswered questions, but thank you for answering what we do know. Bloomberg's at Ludlow. Thank you. That does

it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. We're gonna be back here tomorrow follow even more details, more angles on the steel, as well as tech earnings from the biggest giants, Alphabet and Myke. We're soft. Reporting will be across all of it tomorrow. I'm Emily Check in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg