Sarafina Spautz / HuffPost
TWITTER – His appetite obviously has no limit. the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, for the tidy sum of 44 billion dollars, does not fail to arouse questions and reactions. including those of Jeff Bezosthe boss of Amazon and rival of Elon Musk in many areas such as the space race (Elon Musk leading SpaceXwhile Jeff Bezos is the head of Blue Origin).
Taking a tweet from Mike Forsythejournalist at the New York Times, the boss of Amazon highlighted the links between Elon Musk and China, wondering in a tweet if the “Chinese government” was not going to gain “a little influence” on the content published on Twitter thanks to this operation.
An extension of Chinese censorship?
The Tesla company, also owned by Elon Musk and known for its success in the production and sale of electric cars, is indeed largely established in China, which is its second biggest market. It is also from Chinese suppliers that the electric car company recovers most of its batteries.
Will this dependence of Tesla on China have an influence on Elon Musk’s future decisions regarding what is posted (or not) on Twitter? This is what several observers are wondering, while China has banned Twitter from its territory – like many Western social networks that escape Chinese power online censorship.
The new acquisition of Elon Musk might thus be an opportunity to influence the content that is broadcast there outside of Chinese territory. “What if Beijing pressures him regarding, for example, a Uyghur or Hong Kong activist Twitter account? Or regarding the Chinese disinformation bots that operate this platform?”, also asked Melissa Chanan American journalist, following the takeover was announced.
A long-standing rivalry
However, following asking the question regarding the potential influence of the Chinese authorities on Elon Musk – without giving the slightest concrete information on the subject -, Jeff Bezos continued his tweets by saying that “no, probably”, China will not win. no influence on Twitter through Elon Musk. According to Bezos, the main problem that his rival will face will be the “complexity” of Tesla’s establishment in China, rather than potential censorship on Twitter. The leader of Amazon then indicates that’Elon Musk “is extremely good at navigating this kind of complexity”.
Still, the original question has been asked. And this reaction marks a new episode of a rivalry between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk which does not date from yesterday. Immensely rich thanks to American new technology companies, the two billionaires are in competition both in the field of accumulated fortune and the conquest of space. And are then not stingy with spades, each defending their ideas publicly, as shown in the video below.
