Twitter reviews Elon Musk's $43B takeover bid
Historian Victor Davis Hanson offers analysis on 'The Story'
Silicon Valley was originally advertised as a "free-spirited counterculture," but has now transformed into a political monopoly, as exemplified by its collective rage at the prospect of South African-born billionaire Elon Musk's investments in Twitter, historian Victor Davis Hanson said Thursday.
Hanson told Fox News that Twitter is arriving at a "rendezvous" with what may become an unsustainable business model as free speech alternatives and other applications geared toward younger demographics slowly peel away its usership.
"[Musk] is saying that communication is global and electronically instant, [with] a lot more power than it had before," he said.
"Silicon Valley advertised itself as a free-spirited counterculture that turned into a monopoly and not just a monopoly, but a political monopoly. And so he's indicative of a whole coalition of forces that are arriving that Twitter has a rendezvous with -- and it's not sustainable."
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Elon Musk (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Hanson noted that Twitter's behavior has become more and more questionable in recent years, pointing to the fact that former President Donald Trump was banished from the platform, while the Taliban and other nefarious groups still have a presence.
He added that if that present situation is combined with a Republican "landslide" in the midterms, Twitter will likely see more federal scrutiny than it does with ideologically-aligned leftists in control.
"And this is aside from the fact that they are appealing to an older and older audience as Tik Tok and Snapchat and Instagram are peeling away some of their market."
Twitter/Capitol photo composite
"So I think they've got a lot of challenges, and I think Elon Musk knows that, and he's basically telling them, 'You've got competitors on one side – you've got the government's going to take a hard look at you. You better deal with me because I could reform you before they either put you out of business or the young companies come up, or the government shut you down,'" Hanson predicted.
In a recent missive, Musk wrote to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor that he invested in the platform in part due to its "potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe."
"And I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy. However, since making my investment, I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company."
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