And there are understandable fears that Musk’s #anything goes, ideas about minimising the policing of the platform’s content have dangerous consequences.

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Only a week ago Musk released a poll on his Twitter account that eventually received over 2 million votes, questioning whether the company unfairly censors speech.

And the notion that he will humbly decline the offer of a megaphone that his investment has given him doesn’t stack up.

At this stage it’s not known whether Musk will seek board representation at Twitter - as the largest shareholder he would probably be eligible for one.

Looking at his Twitter play through a pure investment lens, it looks unconventional at best, foolhardy at worst.

Twitter has been something of a star and a disappointment.

Its most recent quarterly result came in behind market expectations as it did in the 2020 and 2021 financial years. And even Twitter’s most bullish analyst is anticipating a year from now the stock will be up to $US60. The median expectation is for the shares to be trading at $US42 and the bears are targeting $US30.

Not surprisingly there is a massive variation on profit expectations for 2022. The departure of Dorsey late last year was the anticipated spur for a strategy rethink, but it’s too early to know whether the new chief executive Parag Agrawal could stage a turnaround.

Twitter’s ‘user’ reach is impressive but its ability to monetise those users has been underwhelming. It’s a platform that doesn’t lend itself to advertising in the same way as others such as Instagram.

Twitter shareholders could perhaps do worse than having an original thinker like Musk take a fresh view of the business model. But that would require a consensus approach with the current management.

When Agrawal took the top job he promised to stick with ambitious revenue and user-growth goals set by Dorsey in his final years. The company hopes to reach 315 million active users and $US7.5 billion in revenue by the end of 2023 - targets he reaffirmed in February.

Regardless of Musk’s motives for buying into Twitter the move has had a ripple effect on the technology sector.

It has ignited a fire under the valuations of other tech companies - many of which had seen their price valuations been impaired by the risk-off investment view that had prevailed for most of this calendar year.

That said, in recent weeks markets had started to flip their risk appetite on the sector which had been damaged by the spectre of higher interest rates, inflation and the war in Ukraine.

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Since the middle of March, the US tech-heavy Nasdaq has risen more than 15 per cent while the Dow Jones index has gained 6 per cent. For most of 2022 the Nasdaq had been under pressure and it remains off about 8 per cent since the start of January.

And Twitter will now be one of the most watched stocks in the world. Second guessing Musk is something of a national pastime in the US.

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