Musk-Twitter Deal Would Be Latest in Trend of Billionaires Buying Media Companies

An attention-grab by a walking headline generator that echoes deeper themes on media platforms, Elon Musk’s $43 billion bid for Twitter is stepping from poison pill to possible.

On Monday (April 25) The Wall Street Journal reported that “the two sides met Sunday to discuss the proposal from Mr. Musk,” calling it “a dramatic turnaround from earlier this month, when Twitter was expected to rebuff Mr. Musk’s offer.”

Reuters reported on Sunday that “the social media company adopted a poison pill after Musk made his offer to prevent him from raising his more than 9% stake in the company above 15% without negotiating a deal with its board. In response, Musk has threatened to launch a tender offer that he could use to register Twitter shareholder support for his bid.”

Twitter’s board is reportedly concerned that shareholders might support a tender offer.

Beyond shareholder issues, many users are concerned about how Musk may roll back platform policies about removing controversial posts, selectively blocking provocative users, and whether Musk’s businesses present conflicts of interest with ownership of a major media outlet.

See also: Report: Twitter Takes Second Look at Musk Offer, May Negotiate

The Billionaire’s News Club

Musk is latest in a line of billionaires who either innovated their path to media moguldom or simply bought their way in.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. bought Dow Jones & Co. in 2007, getting The Wall Street Journal and expanding a media empire. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013. That year Boston Red Sox owner John Henry paid $70 million for The Boston Globe. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff acquired Time magazine in 2018.

Most of these legacy media companies were struggling with ad revenue moving from print to online, but the market crash of 2008 and rising force of the mobile internet greatly accelerated print’s fall, with the U.S. losing “almost 1,800 papers since 2004, including more than 60 dailies and 1,700 weeklies,” according the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina.

How — and why — did the internet nouveau-riche want to save old-school news organizations?

In Bezos’s case, it was about love of journalism and attachment to a legendary publisher. Officially, at least. To date, the biggest criticism of Bezos owning WaPo came from presidential rival Senator Bernie Sanders, who at one point claimed 2020 campaign reporting was uneven.

As for changes, the New York Times reported in 2021 that the Amazon founder “appointed a new publisher and turned The Washington Post’s business strategy — and, by extension, its journalistic one — upside down, stipulating that its outlook would change from local to national, even global.”

“Since 2013, the newsroom head count has nearly doubled — it is expected to reach 1,010 this year — with 26 locations around the world, according to a spokeswoman.”

See also: Le Monde CEO Says Big Tech Partnerships Key to Unlocking Digital Sub Growth

Benioff’s purchase of venerable Time magazine from publishing giant Meredith is at least as interesting, as the CRM visionary sees an ongoing role in media — and on the P&L — for print.

An Axios interview with Benioff in January noted that “the carve-out is proving transformative for Time, as Benioff seems to have actively brought a lot of his tech ethos to the company Henry Luce founded nearly 100 years ago.”

Axios said Time is now “restructured around product (a la Salesforce)” as opposed to its former organization “by function” such as editorial, marketing, IT, subscriptions and so on.

While Time became outmoded as a news source, its custom “bookazines” unit doing royal wedding editions and celebrity issues ubiquitously found at grocery checkouts is booming.

Bookazines are still such a good business that it called for a cease-and-desist order in 2021 when Time moved printing of those commemorative magazines away from Meredith.

The New York Post reported last year that sources said, “Meredith lawyers recently fired off a ‘cease and desist’ letter to Time magazine editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal, claiming that pulling the highly profitable specials business from Meredith is a violation of the contract.”

Innovators Set the Agenda

While most of these executives bought existing media assets with storied histories and large readerships, former New York City Mayor and U.S. presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg is perhaps the true media innovator in the group, having built his from the ground up.

Bloomberg’s well-known origin story involves his $10 million buyout following the acquisition of brokerage Salomon Brothers in 1981 where he was a partner. Taking some experience with computerizing Salomon, Bloomberg created a real-time stock price and news service that came to be known as the Bloomberg Terminal — launching Bloomberg News in 1990.

The most digital-first of all the media giants mentioned, Bloomberg’s biggest imbroglio as news magnate came when Bloomberg writers were told not to criticize the former New York City mayor’s 2020 presidential run.

A widely reported memo from Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait in 2019 to Bloomberg’s editorial staff said “We will continue our tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation) and we will extend the same policy to his rivals in the Democratic primaries,” CNBC reported in 2019.

Rupert Murdoch may have inherited a newspaper from his dad, but his own moves have made Sky News in the U.K. and Fox News in the U.S. into market-leading news organizations, along with holdings from The Wall Street Journal to the New York Post.