Elon Musk is seriously considering building a new social media platform

Elon Musk attends the opening ceremony of Tesla’s new Giga plant for electric vehicles in Gruenheide, Germany, March 22, 2022. Patrick Bloll/Paul via Reuters

March 27 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) The billionaire said in a tweet Saturday that CEO Elon Musk is “seriously” considering building a new social media platform.

Musk was responding to a Twitter user’s question about whether he would consider creating a social media platform consisting of an open source algorithm and one that prioritizes free speech, and where publicity is minimal.

Musk, a prolific user of Twitter himself, has been critical of the social media platform and its policies recently. He said the company was undermining democracy by failing to adhere to the principles of free speech.

His tweet comes a day after he put out a Twitter poll asking users if they think Twitter adheres to the principle of free speech, which more than 70% voted “no.”

“The results of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully,” he said on Friday.

If Musk decides to go ahead with creating a new platform, he will join a growing group of tech companies that present themselves as champions of free speech and who hope to attract users who feel their opinions are being suppressed on platforms like Twitter (TWTR.N)meta platform (FB.O) Owned by Facebook and Alphabet (GOOGL.O) youtube google. Read more

None of the companies, including Donald Trump’s Truth Social, Twitter competitors Gettr and Parler and video site Rumble, have come close to matching the reach and popularity of the major platforms yet.

Additional reporting by Jhanavi Nidomulu and Bhargav Acharya in Bengaluru; Lincoln Fest Editing.

Our criteria: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.