# Musk bought Twitter after noticing changes to the platform

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/musk-bought-twitter-after-noticing-changes-to-the-platform/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Elon Musk](https://realalpha.app/builders/elon-musk/) · Elon Musk is a business magnate, designer, and engineer. · Co-founded PayPal, founded SpaceX and xAI, and has been Tesla's CEO since 2008.
- Host: [Joe Rogan](https://realalpha.app/people/joe-rogan/) · Host, The Joe Rogan Experience
- Show: The Joe Rogan Experience
- Episode: [Joe Rogan Experience #2223 - Elon Musk](https://realalpha.app/v/7qZl_5xHoBw/), Nov 4, 2024
- Moment: 12:00 to 15:16 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/musk-bought-twitter-after-noticing-changes-to-the-platform/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/7qZl_5xHoBw/?t=720

## Quote

> “I had the **most number of interactions** of any account in the system.”
> — [Elon Musk](https://realalpha.app/builders/elon-musk/) at [12:19](https://realalpha.app/v/7qZl_5xHoBw/?t=739) · The Joe Rogan Experience

## Takeaways

1. His account had more interactions than any other on Twitter
2. He says high engagement helped him spot system changes
3. Trump’s deplatforming was a turning point in his decision

## About this segment

Elon Musk says his unusually high interaction count made changes to Twitter noticeable, and Trump’s deplatforming helped push him toward buying it. His account shows how platform governance shaped the decision.

From “Joe Rogan Experience #2223 - Elon Musk”, Nov 4, 2024. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/7qZl_5xHoBw/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[12:05](https://realalpha.app/v/7qZl_5xHoBw/?t=725) We had no idea. Exactly. No, it's – I mean, the reason I bought it was because I'm pretty attuned since I was like the most interacted with a user on Twitter before the acquisition. So before the acquisition, I had more interactions than – like there's some accounts like Obama and whatever had higher follower accounts, but I had the most number of interactions of any account in the system. So I was very attuned to, like, if they change the system, I can tell immediately.

[12:34](https://realalpha.app/v/7qZl_5xHoBw/?t=754) And I'm like, something weird is going on here, you know? Yeah. There's, like, I just got increasingly uneasy. And obviously when they de-platformed the sitting president, you know, de-platformed Trump, that was just insane, you know? And the things he was posting, like, he was posting things that, like, he was posting good things. He was saying like, hey, do not riot, don't do any destruction of property, you know, please stay calm.

[13:05](https://realalpha.app/v/7qZl_5xHoBw/?t=785) That's the kind of stuff he was posting. And you're like, what's wrong with that? And then some people said like, oh, that's like some sort of dog whistle. He means the opposite. I'm like, okay. So we'll give you Trump's account now you put you post what you think you should post because he can post nothing You can ask people to calm down Like what? It was insane like it didn't make any sense Well, it's completely illogical when you say it's dog whistling to tell his followers to not be violent. Yeah crazy and crazy That's crazy crazy. Don't you think they'll listen to him? Yeah, isn't that the whole point?

[13:38](https://realalpha.app/v/7qZl_5xHoBw/?t=818) They listened to him and created violence in the first place. That's what you think exactly you're accusing him of right And then there's the fact that we know that there was agents in the crowd that were agent provocateurs that were encouraging people to do illegal shit. We know that for a fact. This is not – that was always the big Alex Jones type tinfoil hat conspiracy theory because Alex proposed that back at the World Trade Organization protests.

[14:04](https://realalpha.app/v/7qZl_5xHoBw/?t=844) I believe we're in Seattle in the 90s. And they sent in agent provocateurs, started smashing things, lighting things on fire. Now all of a sudden a peaceful protest is no longer peaceful. They move in the cops. They shut everything down They had it set up where it was a no protest zone where you couldn't even have a pin that had the WTO with a red line through it They wouldn't let you go in through to go to work So you couldn't protest you couldn't exercise your First Amendment rights You couldn't even like have a peaceful protest a fucking sticker on your car. You couldn't have that. It's crazy. It's crazy So no, I think we're we were very much at a fork in the road in destiny Um, and, um, you know, so I, I mean, the reason I did the Twitter acquisition was like, it's like, man, if I don't do this, I think we're screwed is the issue.

[14:51](https://realalpha.app/v/7qZl_5xHoBw/?t=891) Well, if you didn't do it, no one else was going to do it because it wasn't a financial winner. It was kind of a crazy move. It's a crazy move. I mean, the thing was way overpriced, um, and, um, you know, like long term, I think, uh, we can, we can ultimately make it a win for investors, but boy, this is a, this is a hard way to make a living well there's also a concerted effort to suppress it there's a