Tech billionaires have used their wealth before to make a mark in the news business. They include Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, who, with his wife, acquired Time in 2018.
Nobody, however, does it quite like Elon Musk. The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive, long one of the loudest voices on Twitter, this week emerged as the social media site’s largest shareholder and newest board member, vaulting him into an influential position at one of the world’s most widely-viewed news sources.
Though Twitter is more of a tech platform than a single editorial product, Musk’s unique position is likely to leave him with some of the influence associated with traditional “press barons — whether that is in ink or bits”, said Jeff Jarvis, an associate journalism professor at City University of New York.