After months of uncertainty, Elon Musk appears to be moving ahead on a deal to acquire Twitter for $44 billion. (Probably.) If the deal goes through, the next big question is: How will he change the company? Musk’s specific goals for Twitter have been hard to pin down, but the problem of how to transform the strategy of a technology business is a familiar one. What Musk will need to overcome is not unlike the challenge faced by an outside executive joining a new company, a private equity firm on a new deal, or a general manager overseeing an acquired business unit on behalf of a conglomerate.
Granted, this situation has its own unique challenges. For one, Musk’s experience is primarily with building new businesses, not transforming existing ones. For another, Twitter epitomizes the ongoing challenges in the business of social media: It faces questions of how to monetize, what content it should moderate (or censor), and what role it should play in society to…
This article was written by Andy Wu and originally published on hbr.org