Will Elon Musk and Twitter Acquire Substack?
Will Elon Musk and Twitter Acquire Substack?
Substack is coming up as an Elon Musk target for another "layer of the narrative"
Hey Guys,
With Elon Musk sharing “Twitter Files” to political journalists who are some of the biggest earners on Substack, you have to wonder. Substack’s makes it easier to tweet from a profile now. Substack has built its business essentially off the back of Twitter and has tried to benefit from the Twitter exodus.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Substack’s plan was to be acquired by Twitter all along. Now that reality might be a step closer given how Elon Musk is behaving.
Musk 'open' to buying Substack after Twitter user said it would give him control of the 'narrative layer'
According to Insider, Elon Musk said he's "open to the idea" of buying publishing platform Substack after a Twitter user said doing so would give him control over the "narrative layer" of the internet.
Musk was responding to a thread started by conservative commentator Dave Rubin who alleged that YouTube and Google's "manipulation for political purposes is FAR worse than Twitter's."
Elon Musk is Open to the Idea
Given Substack’s actual valuation in 2023, they need to raise funds on the lower valuation, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. Substack’s product is not mature enough for an exit, so Twitter could participate in their next funding round and work on improved synergy from both sides.
Elon Musk is Actively Working with Substack Journalists
The Twitter Files really does appear like Substack and Twitter are in bed together.
I don’t follow politics but The Twitter Files are a series of Twitter threads based on internal Twitter, Inc. documents shared by owner Elon Musk with freelance journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss and author Michael Shellenberger in December 2022.
On the other hand Meta would be crazy not to try to clone Twitter during the exodus of 2022 and 2023. Meta’s Facebook and Instagram networks are still undeniably massive, with established revenue fundamentals. How hard would it be to create a text-based app for breaking news and journalists a bit like what Post News is doing for Facebook?
The old Facebook and Instagrams we once enjoyed, really are nearly unrecognizable products. Meta could go retro with a text based app. It would give people that love to dialogue about politics another outlet. Meta is also very experienced and arguably quite good at one thing in particular: Cloning the features of its its rivals.
Elon Musk Branding himself as a Free Speech Champion
As Elon Musk gets more politically oriented, owning Substack could also be very useful. However it would also likely get some antitrust attention.
Social media centralization is clearly getting out of hand:
But would Twitter and Substack having the same owner actually help things? What happens if Substack gets acquired by Twitter, but then Twitter fails and goes bankrupt, would it be the end of Substack?
There are many possible scenarios.
Microsoft’s LinkedIn also employs significant "visibility filtering" (VF). Clearly it’s hard to find more decentralized direct-to-consumer forms of media in 2023. Substack is a rare oasis from algorithms and Ads, which may change if Elon Musk decides to acquire it.
Meta abandoned Bulletin pretty quickly and Reveue appears to be no more, it’s not clear why Twitter hasn’t also given users the ability to Tweet longer micro-blogging posts with embedded links the way Post News implements.
Not sure if Twitter would realistically acquire Substack, but how they are entwined continues to grow. Political writers are by far the most successful by a wide margin of all Creators and journalists on Substack. The Elections are coming, right after a recession, things are going to get pretty crazy in 2023 and 2024.
Substack levels up with the controversy. But Elon Musk risks blowing it up.
Thanks for reading!