Blog: elon musk

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Musk calls UK government ‘tyrannical’ and TikTok could leave the US: is global culture going regional again?

Cover image for Musk calls UK government ‘tyrannical’ and TikTok could leave the US: is global culture going regional again?

Hanna Kahlert

7 Jan 2025

A swath of elections in 2024 have paved the way for regulatory changes in the social media sphere, with talk of bans and restrictions meeting the governmental meddling of CEOs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

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A regulation-heavy year for social looms in 2025

Cover image for A regulation-heavy year for social looms in 2025

Hanna Kahlert

17 Dec 2024

Product Strategy

The UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, has published guidelines around the Online Safety Act, warning that most social platforms are not adequately meeting standards. Sites that fail to comply can be faced with high fines and potential bans (per The Guardian ).

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Australia bans social media for under-16s: the first domino towards a new digital world?

Cover image for Australia bans social media for under-16s: the first domino towards a new digital world?

Hanna Kahlert

3 Dec 2024

age restriction

australia social media ban

Australia has just approved groundbreaking social media regulation that bans users under 16 from accessing platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, and X. This under-16 social media ban is the first of its kind that does not allow exceptions for existing users or those with parental permission.

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Why social media regulation could be a boost for the creator economy

Cover image for Why social media regulation could be a boost for the creator economy

Hanna Kahlert

26 Nov 2024

TikTok’s future hangs in the balance, with its January deadline to find a new owner fast approaching beneath the oversight of a new, and unpredictable, US administration. President Trump originally tried to ban the app himself in 2020 by executive order, which failed.

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The BlueSky migration: How cultural shifts can disrupt even the most established social media platforms

Cover image for The BlueSky migration: How cultural shifts can disrupt even the most established social media platforms

Hanna Kahlert

19 Nov 2024

Twitter clones have proliferated since Elon Musk first bought and renamed the platform to X in 2022. Despite a lot of buzz around platforms like Mastodon and BlueSky, none have seemed to capture a significant audience, with X’s weekly active usage remaining consistent.

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Ofcom, Elon Musk, and the future of the social platform marketplace

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Hanna Kahlert

30 Oct 2024

Social platforms

Earlier this year, riots broke out across the UK, fuelled largely by misinformation and inflammatory discourse on social media. At the time, it was unclear who bore responsibility: did the brunt of the blame fall on certain accounts and creators, or do social platforms need to take a firmer approach to content moderation ? This conversation is not new –CEOs, from Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg to TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew – have sat before Congress numerous times in pursuit of the answer.

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BlueSky benefits from X’s Brazil ban: a fragmenting social ecosystem is shaky ground for incumbents

Cover image for BlueSky benefits from X’s Brazil ban: a fragmenting social ecosystem is shaky ground for incumbents

Hanna Kahlert

10 Sep 2024

X has long been the social platform of ‘on the pulse’ news updates and cultural happenings. Its users over-index for using social platforms to keep up with news and culture (as outlined in our social platform user behaviour report ), and its high-profile posts often make it into the broader news cycle and dictate coverage and strategy.

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From ubiquitous bird app to banned in Brazil: what happened to X (and will it happen to others)?

Cover image for From ubiquitous bird app to banned in Brazil: what happened to X (and will it happen to others)?

Hanna Kahlert

4 Sep 2024

Early in August, Elon Musk was vaguely threatened with extradition to the UK for his role in spreading misinformation that resulted in riots. Three weeks later, X was banned in Brazil, following unpaid fines and allegations that the app was being used to spread politically threatening misinformation.

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Who wins the social spiral? Consumers’ relationship with social platforms is changing

Cover image for Who wins the social spiral? Consumers’ relationship with social platforms is changing

Hanna Kahlert

28 Aug 2024

There is no shortage of takes on the role of social platforms in our daily lives, from former influencers lamenting the end of Twitter’s golden era to researchers studying social media’s impact on teens’ mental health .

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Instagram and the download-delete cycle: a cultural shift for social platforms

Cover image for Instagram and the download-delete cycle: a cultural shift for social platforms

Hanna Kahlert

13 Aug 2024

analogue revival

Forget the tech-centric sci-fi future promised by the early 2000’s; the new aspiration is going offline. Analogue is the new ‘cool’, and it is not just about nostalgia. Audiences are searching for authenticity, connection, novelty, experience, and tangible ownership of the things they love, all of which are scarce now in an oversaturated digital environment .

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How X can become a leading social video player by fuelling controversy over creativity

Cover image for How X can become a leading social video player by fuelling controversy over creativity

Ben Woods

17 Jan 2024

Elon Musk has celebrated a small win after persuading Jimmy Donaldson – aka Mr Beast – to post a video on Twitter/ X. Until now, X’s attempts to woo the superstar creator have been rebuffed . Mr Beast had spoken openly about how he would only make a small amount of money on X compared to video posts on YouTube.

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The future is interoperability: Why Threads could beat Twitter through the Fediverse

Cover image for The future is interoperability: Why Threads could beat Twitter through the Fediverse

Hanna Kahlert

12 Jul 2023

While Elon Musk has been posturing public beef with Mark Zuckerberg (challenging him to a cage match, practicing with former MMA champions, public callouts on Twitter, requesting very personal measurements), Zuckerberg has responded in a more traditional way (aside from his own training pictures) with the launch of Threads, Twitter’s biggest competitor to-date.

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Are subscriptions the future of social apps?

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Hanna Kahlert

22 Feb 2023

When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he was publicly faced with a seemingly impossible ask: make the iconic, culture-defining, long-standing social app (consistently) profitable. At the time of acquisition, Twitter did not have the same thriving ad business as Meta, and so Musk was forced to look at alternatives.

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What Elon's Twitter means for music

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Tatiana Cirisano

29 Nov 2022

Content Creators

When we wrote about Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter back in April, the idea that it would actually happen seemed far-fetched. Now, of course, Musk really is in charge, and the fate of the social platform, which 24% of consumers use weekly, is unclear.

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Tumult at Twitter shines a light on a deflating tech bubble

Cover image for Tumult at Twitter shines a light on a deflating tech bubble

Hanna Kahlert

17 Nov 2022

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has had a rocky start. A lack of a clear corporate and product strategy has alienated advertisers and users alike. Twitter’s brush with profitability is now being replaced by serious concerns over the platform’s long-term future direction.

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The moment is here for social platform disruption

Cover image for The moment is here for social platform disruption

Hanna Kahlert

2 Nov 2022

After more than half a year of contradicting statements, lawsuits, countersuits, and bad memes, Elon Musk finally owns Twitter. Act one: taking a photo with a sink in the Twitter HQ, and captioning it “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!”.

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Twitter versus Musk will decide the future of social

Cover image for Twitter versus Musk will decide the future of social

Hanna Kahlert

14 Jul 2022

In a turn of events, Elon Musk has backed out of his dramatic, very public proposal to buy Twitter. It is a broken courtship characterised by bad-faith public exchanges , on-platform polls, and plot twists.

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Quick Take: Tesla’s Streaming Ambition

Mark Mulligan

23 Jun 2017

Reports have emerged that Tesla is looking to build its own streaming music service. In practice, this will most likely be a case of Tesla building a streaming service that operates solely for Tesla users, rather than competing head on with Apple and Spotify.

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