Elon Musk may have bought Twitter , but now he ’s got to estimate outwhat he ’s actually move to do with it . And so , as withso manyof the mogul ’s mostimportant fiscal conclusion , he ’s taken to Twitter itself for breathing in , brainstorming his next corporate insurance in 280 characters or less .

The pressure ’s on , too , as near three - fifths of the $ 44 billion he pass on the social media hulk was n’t in reality his . AReuters reportrevealed last week that Musk stop up $ 25.5 billion in cant loanword by prognosticate to sheer costs and raise tax income from the company – though , once again , the proposal was thin on any precise detail of how to action this , seed conversant with the place said .

One idea that reportedly made the pitch wo n’t number as welcome news program to Twitter ’s 7,500 employees , as Musk specifically bring up job cuts , reportsBloomberg . While the particular of which multitude or departments would be sham by this determination are yet to be set , a mid - April tweet from Musk may reveal one target of the newly strike metier mogul ’s cost - cutting measures : Twitter ’s board of executives .

“ Board pay will be $ 0 if my command succeeds , ” Musk twitch , “ so that ’s ~$3M / year save right there . ”

While that may sound telling on the face of it , it ’s improbable to move his financial backer – it ’s a “ saving ” that would take about 8,500 years to pay off the loan he secured . But Musk has another idea up his sleeve to generate money from the site : charging its drug user .

Do n’t panic – “ Twitter will always be free for fooling users , ” Muskannounced in a tweetWednesday . But there may be “ a slight cost for commercial / government activity user ” in future , he add .

No further particular were include in the tweet , which itself was a reply to a funnily conspiratorial message cite the Freemasons , although Reuters cover that Musk also evoke charging sensitive to engraft or quote tweet in his funding pitch .

But if Musk want to postdate through on these theme , he ’s probable to run into a few hurdles , as Mike Masnick explained forTechdirt .

“ [ T]hanks to the 1st Amendment ( that he claim to support so much ) he ’s unlikely to be able-bodied to do that successfully , ” Masnick pointed out . “ cite a tweet … in almost every damn case is go to be fair purpose under right of first publication law . And , a fundamental reason we have just utilisation in copyright law … is that the 1st Amendment expect it , or else copyright law would muffle the very free speech that Musk claims to love so much . ”

From early on in his bid to corrupt the societal media platform , Muskpositioned himselfas a “ loose speech absolutist ” – he even cited his belief in “ Twitter[‘s ] … potential to be the political platform for devoid voice communication around the orb ” inhis leverage offer .

It ’s blend in to be laborious to straight charging for tweets with that avowed loyalty to free talking to – especially if you ’re at the same time trying to reduce the party headcount , since such a move would inevitably come with quite an administrative concern . Twoheadaches , actually , since we have n’t even started onhow the fellowship could go aboutcharging ship’s company or governments for use of the platform .

But even if Musk somehow visualise all that out , that wo n’t be the end for the problems with this feeler . Back in late April , hetweetedthat he would “ kill the spam bots or pass trying ! ” – but as Masnick signal out , monetise the platform is probable to do the exact opposite .

Still , when you ’re dealing with someone like Musk – illustrious for ground his business organization decision onimpulse and self - belief – perhaps it ’s wiser not to seek to forestall his future move . After all , as he said at a TED conference after making his fling for Twitter , “ I do n’t care about the economic science at all . ”