Elon Musk’s imminent takeover of Twitter has prompted a number of hot takes, particularly from his fellow billionaires. But while Jack Dorsey is enthusiastic, Jeff Bezos has some reservations.
On Monday, the former Amazon CEO wondered if the Chinese government will try to influence Twitter through Musk since one of his other companies, Tesla, has a major presence in China. The country is not only Tesla’s second largest market, but also a key supplier for electric car battery materials and components, as a New York Times reporter pointed out on Twitter.
In response to the reporter's tweet, Bezos couldn’t help but tweet: “Interesting question. Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?”
Bezos later dialed back his comments by tweeting out: “My own answer to this question is probably not. The more likely outcome in this regard is complexity in China for Tesla, rather than censorship at Twitter.
“But we’ll see. Musk is extremely good at navigating this kind of complexity,” he added.
It’s no secret that Bezos and Musk have a rocky relationship. Over the years, the two have feuded over their competing space projects, with Musk taking jabs at Bezos on Twitter.
However, many experts and journalists who cover China are also questioning if Musk’s takeover of Twitter gives the country an opening to influence the social media platform.
“Elon Musk has a Tesla factory in China and he wants to sell more cars there, as many China observers note,” wrote journalist Melissa Chan, who was kicked out of the country. “What happens if Beijing leans on him about say, a Uyghur or Hong Kong activist account? Or about Chinese disinformation bots leveraging this platform?”
For now, Musk has only said he’s committed to making Twitter an arena for free speech, which will include scaling back attempts to censor content. But according to Chan, that’s the problem.
“If Elon Musk thinks because he's the world's richest man that he can tell China to piss off if Beijing ever starts leaning on him about Twitter, he'll find out how efficiently the Chinese state can gobble up that Tesla Shanghai factory," Chan wrote.
Interestingly, China itself isn’t exactly denying it won’t try to influence Twitter. On Tuesday, a journalist asked the country’s Foreign Ministry if the government would try to exercise its leverage over Musk to influence content on Twitter, including lifting its ban on ads from state-sponsored media outlets.
“I can tell you are very good at speculating, but without any basis,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in response.