Twitter is an Elon Musk company after the billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO completed his blockbuster takeover that for months had teetered on the verge of collapse. But the world’s richest man made good his bid to acquire the social media company and the rest is quickly becoming history.
As the dust over the $44 billion acquisition settles, Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, whose company helped finance Musk’s takeover via a $500 million investment, has shared reasons why he put money into the deal and what he thinks will be the benefits of the acquisition to the cryptocurrency sector.
He also believes Twitter can be an even better investment, but will need proper management and better monetisation.
CZ sees an opportunity for crypto at the ‘Twitter table’
Speaking during an interview on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’, CZ explained Binance’s support for Musk, noting that they had agreed to the financing a few months ago. Asked why he supported the purchase, he said:
“There are many reasons for supporting the deal. Twitter is a free speech platform, which is global, which is extremely important. We want to support strong entrepreneurs. Elon Musk is a very strong entrepreneur.”
The Binance chief also mentioned that Twitter can be a great tool when it comes to crypto adoption, including within the Web3 space. He told CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’:
“We want to make sure that crypto has a seat at the table when it comes to free speech. And there are more tactical things like we want to help bring Twitter into Web3 when they’re ready.”
And among the immediate areas he sees crypto making a mark via Twitter is through the use of digital currencies to pay for memberships.
Musk has reportedly asked Twitter staff to work round-the-clock on the objective of rolling out a new pricing model for Twitter Blue subscription. Various prices have been considered, with possible different payments for a tiered approach to verification.
According to Zhao, this can be a huge opportunity to have crypto as a payment method for the monthly charge, and thus pushing further crypto adoption.
Binance CEO says Twitter has just not been run well
On the future of Twitter as a company, Zhao said he believes Musk is an entrepreneur that can handle any pressure that might come with his other commitments and interactions given his role as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.
CZ also maintains he’s a long term investor, believing in strong entrepreneurs, strong platforms and free speech. Indeed, he sees Twitter as a very strong platform that can be an even better investment if it’s “run well.”
“I believe Twitter has not been monetized well. It has not been grown well. There’s many tactical problems, like the bots that spam my comments. There’s scammer accounts on there… it’s just not been run well.”
But if these issues are successfully tackled, the Binance chief sees Twitter as a very valuable company – especially with Elon Musk at the helm.