Twitter founder and ?? ??? ??? ???CEO Jack Dorsey may soon be feeling the heat from one of his company’s newest stake-holders: a major Republican donor.
According to a new report from Bloomberg News, Republican mega-donor and billionaire founder of Elliott Management, Paul Singer, has just purchased a “sizeable” stake in the popular microblogging platform. Singer is apparently looking to push for major changes at Twitter, including ousting Dorsey.
As we all know by now, President Donald Trump is a big fan of the service. Trump uses Twitter as his platform of choice when he takes to the internet to share his thoughts. He's also frequently complained about what he perceives to be an unfair treatment of his views at the platform level.
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Conservatives have often rallied behind talking points that social media platforms have an anti-conservativebias. Regardless of the factthat studies, even ones led by conservatives, have shown this is not the case, many social media companies have attempted to give in the the right’s demands. This has often led to overcorrecting, like in Facebook’s case, where conservative outlets now dominate the platform.
Late in 2019, in order to avoid the controversy surrounding Facebook’s political ad policies, Dorsey announced that Twitter would no longerrun paid political advertisements. The company also rolled out policies that would ban disinformationand manipulated media, such as Trump’s edited Nancy Pelosi video, from the platform. Both moves rankled conservatives on the site.
What are the changes at the company that a major Republican donor like Singer seeks? Elliott representatives are not commenting, but the report makes it clear that he's seeking to oust Dorsey, signaling disapproval in the management of the company.
SEE ALSO: Twitter will tweak search results to fight coronavirus disinformationWe should note that Singer opposed Trump in 2016. However, reportssince claim he has sparked something of a relationship with the president, attending Trump’s reelection fundraisers and donating to the Republican Party. Singer has of course continued to support down-ballot Republicans, so lack of support for the president doesn’t mean he’s not still looking to help the party as a whole.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see more outcries of anti-conservative bias from the right on Twitter. It’s an election year, after all, and if the goal is to push for changes and possibly oust Dorsey, that would be an effective way to try and do it.
UPDATE: March 2, 2020, 10:18 a.m. EST An earlier version of this post cited Twitter's "political policies" as Singer's reason for wanting to oust Dorsey. This story has been updated to more accurately reflect what was stated in the report.
Topics Social Media X/Twitter Politics