Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, is always in the news. The world’s wealthiest man is buying Twitter and plans to take it private. Musk has been linked to the luxury car firm Mercedes Benz in recent months. Many people are now guessing that Musk has also purchased YouTube. Has Musk bought YouTube?
Youtube Videos Spreading Rumors That Musk Has Bought Youtube
There are certain videos making rounds claiming that the Tesla billionaire Elon Musk has now bought the video sharing platform Youtube.
The video then goes on to speculate why exactly has Elon Musk bought Youtube and what are the major changes that he will introduce on the social media site.
Per the video, Elon Musk started showing interest in Youtube late last year when he made a tweet suggesting that he wanted to quit his work so that he can become a full-time influencer.
It is important to note that the Tesla billionaire has a long and rich history with youtube that stretches to the time it was started in 2005. Musk has seen that it is not enough for him to be just an influencer on the free video sharing platform but an investor as well.
According to the Bloomberg billionaires index in the first week of May 2022, Elon Musk had a net worth of around 258 billion dollars. This money is more than enough for buying Youtube as the social media platform is currently valued at 160 billion dollars.
Also read: Elon Musk tells AOC to ‘stop hitting on me’
Why Did Elon Musk Decide To Buy Youtube?
The video also takes a guess at why the Tesla billionaire decided to buy Youtube. As per them,
Musk’s main objective in Youtube is for him to fix some of the problems that the social media site is facing. Elon Musk intends to improve on the youtube algorithms that have more often than not promoted conspiracy theories and false information.
It is critical for all the news and information that is shared on Youtube to be authenticated as it reaches a very large audience. Youtube is one of the leading social media platforms as it has 122 million active users on a daily basis. The users watch 1 billion hours of content every day. It is quite unfortunate that at times youtube algorithms promote content that has violence and some that have sexually suggestive content.
More often than not, Youtube has failed to detect sexual content that is targeting minors which makes them very vulnerable.
The Tesla billionaire will also be of great help to the many online creators by eliminating policies that make it hard for the smaller YouTubers to make progress on the social media platform.
Musk will also reintroduce the dislike feature on youtube. The dislike tab is very important as it will help you as a viewer to know about videos that you should not even waste your time watching
Also read: Parag Agrawal’s Net Worth? Complete Information!
Did Elon Musk buy YouTube? The Truth
Musk has not bought YouTube, contrary to speculations. He would almost certainly never be able to purchase the company. Musk is the subject of numerous rumors on social media. For instance, Bill Gates is rumored to be getting banned from Twitter.
YouTube is owned by Alphabet, as opposed to Twitter, which is a publicly traded firm. Musk will not be able to purchase YouTube in the same way that he did Twitter. in order for Musk to buy YouTube, Alphabet has to sell the business, which seems almost unlikely.
Musk would have to buy Alphabet to buy YouTube, which seems unlikely given that the company is worth more than five times Musk’s net worth.
If Alphabet sells off YouTube for “value unlocking,” Musk may acquire it. Musk, like he did with Twitter, may make a bid in this situation. Even this situation is implausible.
How Much Is YouTube Worth?
Morgan Stanley estimated YouTube at $160 billion in 2018, about 100 times what Google had spent for it. In fact, from 2018 and 2022, Alphabet stock surged, and despite the recent sell-off, the stock is still far above where it was in 2018. In 2021, Alphabet was the best-performing FAANG stock, with a market worth of almost $2 trillion.
Alphabet has a market capitalization of $1.54 trillion, notwithstanding the recent drop. Only Apple and Microsoft have more market capitalization. While we don’t have any reliable estimates on YouTube’s current value, it should be more than Morgan Stanley’s estimate of $160 billion in 2018.