When I read that the Elon Musk purchase of Twitter was back on, I felt like writing that I have no personal investment in Twitter. From an emotional standpoint, it feels that way. That wouldn’t literally be true, though. I do have (personal) money invested in Twitter and, when the Musk deal goes through, that money is going to make friends with other money. So, from that perspective, I’m happy that Musk got tangled up in all his lies and duplicity and has to follow-through with the deal.

“He was staring down the business end of what was likely going to be a very unpleasant deposition,” Talley says. “It was going to include a lot of things that, let’s just say, charitably, were extremely inconsistent statements that he had made.” Those statements have been called into question by records and statements other people provided, Talley says. “The less charitable way to put it is that he just made stuff up. That would have been very uncomfortable for Musk and his legal team, and that’s definitely a motivation” to settle.

As a consumer, I’m not very attached to Twitter, so I see a couple of bright sides to this petulant billionaire buying the service:

• Investors make the money that we should have made from the natural growth of the platform.
• Micro.blog will hopefully gain more users, and Manton Reece’s hard work on the project will be further rewarded.

People I know insist that they will quit Twitter after the acquisition goes through, so it will be interesting to see if that happens. It will also be worth watching to see what, if anything, changes on the network. I think the most likely shift would be in content review and moderation, based on Musk’s previous statements and the reason for his interest in Twitter.