Business Maverick: Musk’s grand vision for Twitter faces reality check in Asia

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For all the furore about which way Elon Musk might tilt US political discourse after getting the keys to Twitter Inc, his biggest challenges may emerge across the Pacific.

If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!Beijing has shown a willingness to punish billionaires who don’t comply with its wishes. Regulators have hammered the country’s tech giants and effectively banished Alibaba Group Holding Ltd co-founder Jack Ma from public view.

There are incentives on offer beyond the electric-vehicle market. Musk’s SpaceX could certainly seek Chinese customers, while his Boring Co may profit from lucrative infrastructure contracts in the country. And what of Twitter itself? A slice of the Chinese population employs virtual private networks to evade Beijing’s control and use the service. Could Beijing also offer up access to its 1,4 billion people? Perhaps under the right terms. They would certainly not include free speech.India is another high-stakes market for Twitter: there are half a billion internet users in the country and another half-billion getting online.

Twitter plays a role in India’s online discourse similar to that in the US: the country’s political leaders use it to get their messages out, which are then relayed across TV and news networks. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was an early adopter and has 78 million followers on the serviceBut the New Delhi government has insisted on far more control than Washington has ever been able to exert.

When farmers’ groups demanded the repeal of certain laws they said favoured corporate-run farms, they took to the streets and social media to make their case, including Twitter. Modi’s administration insisted the San Francisco-based company take down posts critical of its actionsand Twitter at first refused to comply.

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