Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative commentator, predicted that his Twitter following would double under Mr. Musk’s ownership and egged on the potential layoffs. “I think @elonmusk would do well to fire EVERYBODY and then carefully rehire the ones who share his vision of a free speech internet,” Mr. D’Souza wrote this month.
Others are in favor of more transparency. Jano le Roux, the director of marketing at Likeflare, a marketing agency in the San Francisco Bay Area, said he was surprised that more people weren’t in favor of the deal. He supported the possibility that Mr. Musk could expose more information about Twitter’s algorithms, which determine which tweets find big audiences.
“It’s really important we put glass walls on what is, essentially, the messaging factory of the world,” he said. Making the formulas of Twitter’s algorithms public could benefit democracy, he added.
Cryptocurrency fans have also rhapsodized about the future of Twitter under Mr. Musk, who has participated in crypto culture by sharing memes on Twitter and cracking jokes about the virtual currency Dogecoin on “Saturday Night Live.” After Mr. Musk agreed to buy Twitter, he discussed various cryptocurrency integrations, including running the social media service on a decentralized blockchain network, according to text messages released as part of the legal fight over the deal.
Mr. Musk ultimately concluded that “blockchain Twitter” wasn’t possible and complained about having to endure “laborious blockchain debate,” according to his messages. But rumors about a different crypto solution under Mr. Musk — digital currency wallets for Twitter users — bubbled up this week.
Mr. Paul, the podcaster, said such a move could drive adoption of digital currencies.
“You have the world’s richest man, in some way, legitimizing some of our concepts and ideas, and it will be a fantastic onboarding platform,” he said. The crypto world, he added, is generally pro-Musk.
