I doubt the Twitter acquisition by Musk will go through, regardless of stated reasons. China is the second biggest market after the US for Tesla sales—meaning

I doubt the Twitter acquisition by Musk will go through, regardless of stated reasons. China is the second biggest market after the US for Tesla sales—meaning CCP wields the power to decimate Musk’s wealth, which Tesla stock is the main source of. Musk knows Tesla’s position in China is fragile (like that of any Western company), and the Chinese government knows he knows that; it seems unlikely they will pass on newly found leverage when it comes to influencing discourse on Western social media. By owning Twitter, Musk risks having to choose between his image as free speech maximalist and a large part of Tesla’s sales. From the outside, he doesn’t strike me as someone willing to sacrifice either. (He could implement some mechanism that gives CCP direct or indirect influence over Twitter without the public finding out, but that seems a bit far-fetched.) So far there seems to be no mainstream Western social platform that stands to lose anything by ignoring CCP’s censors. We don’t see YouTube videos, Facebook posts or tweets taken down due to requests from Chinese government. Revenue from China is not a factor for any of their mother companies. I think that’s a good status quo to maintain.