Elon Musk’s deal for Twitter raises concern about China’s influence over the platform
- Musk’s long-time dealings with China, which accounts for about 25 per cent of Tesla’s global revenues, leave him susceptible to pressure from Beijing, some say
- The Chinese government denies it would try to gain leverage over Twitter, with a foreign ministry spokesman calling such claims speculation ‘with no factual basis’
As Covid-19 tore through the United States in 2020, Elon Musk, Tesla Inc.’s billionaire owner, described lockdowns in the country as “fascist” and a violation of citizens’ freedoms.
Two years later, amid far more stringent restrictions in Shanghai, Musk has levelled no such criticism of Beijing’s pandemic response.
The contrast reflected what some human rights advocates and US lawmakers consider a too-friendly relationship between the world’s richest man and authorities in China, Tesla’s second-largest market and a key manufacturing hub for the electric automobile maker.
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And so, when Twitter accepted Musk’s offer to buy the popular microblogging platform last month, it sparked concerns that the social media giant could become vulnerable to influence efforts by Beijing – both to target China’s critics on the platform and to bolster its propaganda efforts overseas.
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is still pending, and there remains the chance it could fall apart.
The takeover came under further scrutiny this week after it emerged Musk had secured part of the financing for the US$44 billion deal from royalty in Saudi Arabia, a country that ranked 166th out of 180 nations in Reporters Without Borders’ 2022 press freedom index.
Human rights campaigners warned that a friendly figure at Twitter’s helm could embolden or enable Beijing’s efforts to obtain personal information about Chinese users of Twitter, citing the Chinese government’s practice of punishing online dissent and its previous appeals for help from foreign tech companies in those efforts.
Raising concern is good – sounding the alarm early to make sure that Musk and his team hear [that] people do have concerns
