Flying South

As both a bird lover and a lover of Twitter, I think it may be instructive on some level to try and dovetail these two completely different experiences into an article that explains the recent $3.2 billion investment made by Elon Musk into Twitter.

It's not going to be easy but here goes.

First, I am a bird lover not because I can tell one apart from the other but simply because I like to hear them chirp. I also like the way they fly in perfect formations.

Equally entertaining to me is that there seems to be little understanding of why birds fly the way they do. Look up "bird murmurs" and you'll see what I mean. You would think, in this day and age, we would have conclusively answered why birds fly in a V instead of explaining it away with an explanation that sounds like a QAnon theory.

Just two days ago, the world of social media was aflitter with the news that the world's richest man bought a sizable chunk of Twitter. Large enough to get on the board and certainly large enough to get everyone's attention.

The first question is WHY? Why would Elon Musk buy into Twitter? He can buy anything. Here's what many agree on:

1. Without Twitter, Elon Musk would not be as wealthy as Elon Musk is today. Who knows: maybe he would even be bankrupt? We will never know. What we do know is that for Elon Musk and thousands of other influential people, Twitter is essential to their success.
2. The founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, recently left Twitter. He was immediately replaced as CEO by an engineer unknown outside of Twitter, Parag Agrawal. Today, I feel sorry for Mr. Agrawal. He probably thought, "man, this is such a dream job." And then Elon Musk shows up.

If you understand this series of Tweets, you will understand why I feel bad for Mr. Agrawal and why I am concerned about Twitter as a platform:

The whole thing is rather sad, really: the subtweets of the Tweets, coming from all corners of Twitter.

It was this Tweet, though, that really got me. Because I could finally put my finger on what was happening.

"no, we didn't get the idea from a poll [wink emoji]."

There was a time when the G.O.P. leadership realized that Mr. Trump had taken over the G.O.P.

Twitter has already realized where they are at with Elon Musk. And it's day two.

Something tells me when things starts to get ugly - and they will - Elon will be taking his shares and flying south.