In this chap­ter titled “Active Investor” from a peri­od stretch­ing from Jan­u­ary to April 2022, we delve into the note­wor­thy accom­plish­ments and rest­less antics of Elon Musk, a fig­ure whose mul­ti­fac­eted endeav­ors have marked sig­nif­i­cant advance­ments in tech­nol­o­gy and space explo­ration. Com­ing off a tri­umphant year, Tes­la, under Musk’s lead­er­ship, saw a 71% increase in sales over the past twelve months, achieved with­out tra­di­tion­al adver­tis­ing. Tes­la’s stock val­u­a­tion soared, ele­vat­ing the com­pa­ny’s worth above the next nine auto man­u­fac­tur­ers com­bined. This was part­ly due to Musk’s aggres­sive man­age­ment style, par­tic­u­lar­ly in secur­ing microchip sup­plies amid a glob­al short­age, allow­ing Tes­la to sus­tain its pro­duc­tion momen­tum.

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, SpaceX, anoth­er of Musk’s ven­tures, dom­i­nat­ed space launch­es, sig­nif­i­cant­ly out­pac­ing glob­al com­peti­tors in pay­load mass deliv­ered to orbit. The com­pa­ny’s achieve­ments includ­ed manned mis­sions to the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion and exten­sive deploy­ments of its Star­link satel­lites, aim­ing to pro­vide glob­al inter­net cov­er­age.

Despite these suc­cess­es, Musk found him­self uneasy in the calm that fol­lowed, likened to a video-game addict rest­less after a win. This rest­less­ness led him to con­tem­plate Twit­ter, a plat­form fit­ting Musk’s impul­sive and irrev­er­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion style, as his next ven­ture. With sub­stan­tial finan­cial liq­uid­i­ty, Musk began con­fi­den­tial­ly acquir­ing Twit­ter shares in Jan­u­ary, drawn to the plat­for­m’s unfil­tered pub­lic dis­course poten­tial. His past engage­ment with Twit­ter oscil­lat­ed from dis­in­ter­est to a pro­lif­ic pres­ence, marked by moments of con­tro­ver­sy and whim­sy alike.

In ear­ly 2022, Musk’s cri­tique of Twit­ter, par­tic­u­lar­ly over free speech and what he per­ceived as the “woke-mind virus,” saw him con­tem­plat­ing more direct involve­ment with the plat­form. Encour­aged by peers and sens­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty to influ­ence its direc­tion, Musk enter­tained join­ing Twit­ter’s board after pri­vate dis­cus­sions with its mem­bers and CEO, Parag Agraw­al. Despite ini­tial reser­va­tions and a com­plex nego­ti­a­tion sur­round­ing board mem­ber­ship terms, Musk opt­ed to join, buoyed by an uncom­pli­cat­ed final agree­ment.

Musk’s inte­gra­tion into Twit­ter’s board was seen as a poten­tial turn­ing point for the plat­form, with sub­stan­tial dis­course on free speech, con­tent pri­or­i­ti­za­tion, and user ver­i­fi­ca­tion. Dis­cus­sions between Musk and his asso­ciates explored the bal­ance between unreg­u­lat­ed dia­logue and curat­ed con­tent, and the via­bil­i­ty of trans­form­ing Twit­ter into a more com­pre­hen­sive dig­i­tal plat­form, even envi­sion­ing it as a pay­ment sys­tem.

This chap­ter con­cludes with Musk’s ambi­tious open­ing of the Giga Texas fac­to­ry, jux­ta­pos­ing the cel­e­bra­to­ry event with his ongo­ing con­tem­pla­tion of Twit­ter’s future. The simul­ta­ne­ous nar­ra­tion of Musk’s tan­gi­ble achieve­ments with his ven­tures and his spec­u­la­tive explo­ration of Twit­ter’s poten­tial under­scores a relent­less dri­ve towards inno­va­tion, tem­pered by an under­ly­ing quest for greater influ­ence in dig­i­tal pub­lic dis­course.