In a recent interview at the TED conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. The interviewer, Chris Anderson, asked Musk whether his status as the richest man and one of the platform’s top influencers could pose a conflict of interest. To which, Musk accused Zuckerberg of having too much control over public debate given his ownership of Meta.
Musk accused Zuckerberg of owning social media
During the interview, Musk said; “As for media sort of ownership, I mean, you’ve got Mark Zuckerberg owning Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, and with a share ownership structure that will have Mark Zuckerberg the 14th still controlling those entities.” Musk accused Zuckerberg of being King Louis XIV, the “Sun King” whose wealth and power were legendarily vast.
Musk said that Mark Zuckerberg holds over 55% of Meta’s voting shares, which gives him the majority power to influence decisions. However, we don’t have that at Twitter, added Musk to which, the audience giggled. Musk also said that he wants to keep Twitter’s algorithm open-source and transparent, as well as allow the site to support the free speech rather than censorship. Daniel Ives, a managing director and senior equity research analyst at financial services firm Wedbush Securities, said; “Musk taking over Twitter would be a nightmare for many employees that have worked under the [former Twitter CEO] Dorsey and Twitter regime.”
The dues between Mark and Musk
In 2016, Zuckerberg issued a public statement expressing his disappointment that a SpaceX rocket explosion destroyed Facebook’s Amos-6 satellite, which was part of the company’s Internet.org initiative for expanding global connectivity. Not long before, Musk blamed the creation of Facebook, in a tweet, for the violence in the US Capitol building. In February, he urged people to delete their Facebook accounts, calling the platform “lame.” And in May he tweeted “Facebook sucks”
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