‘I hope he lives forever’

It’s been a tough year for crypto-billionaires, who saw their net worths plunge during the spring and summer selloff. But Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter is making them smile once again.

In Musk and his promises to bring “free speech” to Twitter, crypto’s libertarian-leaning leaders see a kindred spirit. And in Musk’s on-again, off-again enthusiasm for crypto (including his love of the meme token dogecoin), some see glimmers of hope that Twitter will build crypto payment capabilities or include other ‘Web3’ elements.

“I think Elon is amazing and we are so lucky to have him on our planet,” venture capitalist and bitcoin investor Tim Draper wrote to Forbes in an email. (Draper dropped out of the billionaire ranks earlier this year when bitcoin prices fell). “I think he wants to save the planet with Tesla, make sure we can get away with SpaceX, and now allow everyone free speech with Twitter, and he’s doing everything profitably so he can do it successfully. I hope he lives forever.”

Another of Musk’s other biggest cheerleaders is Changpeng Zhao, founder and CEO of Binance. The crypto exchange invested $500 million this month to help Musk take Twitter private at a whopping $44 billion (which Musk agreed to in part because he saw an opportunity to make a weed joke).

“Twitter is a free speech platform, which is global [and] very important,” CZ, as he is known, told CNBC earlier this week. “We want to support strong entrepreneurs; Elon Musk is a very strong entrepreneur.”

CZ, who Forbes estimates are worth $17.4 billion, have other reasons to support Musk’s takeover of Twitter. “We want to make sure that crypto has a place at the table for free speech,” CZ said CNBC. “We want to help bring Twitter into Web3 when they’re ready.”

According to Owen Lau, an equity analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., Binance’s investment gives CZ a head start on influencing Twitter’s future crypto endeavors. “CZ definitely has an advantage here,” says Lau. “WHO [else] can write a check for $500 million?”

CZ did not go into the details of how Binance, which is facing a series of investigations by various US authorities over allegations of enabling money laundering and other financial crimes, plans to work with Twitter. CZ and Binance could not be reached for comment.

Brian Armstrong, the billionaire founder and CEO of Coinbase, is another fan of Musk’s vision. “Elon buying twitter is a huge win for free speech, and probably changes the trajectory of the world more than most people realize,” Armstrong tweeted in April, when the deal was first announced. “Twitter is upstream of media and culture in many ways, and it was going in a very dangerous direction in terms of censorship,” added Armstrong (who famously banned political discussion at his company in 2020).

It doesn’t appear that Armstrong has changed his mind in recent months. “Nothing to add beyond Brian’s tweets,” a Coinbase spokesperson wrote Forbes when asked for an update on Armstrong’s opinion. Armstrong has not made any statements since Musk took over Twitter.

More courageous are bitcoin billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. Cameron Narrow those companies that have already pulled advertising dollars from Twitter because of Musk’s takeover, saying Musk “plans to cure” the platform’s ills, such as its “politically motivated censorship.” And his brother took a swipe at those who complained about Musk’s plans to charge $8 per month for a blue check, saying the previous cost to get a blue check was by becoming “drinking buddies with someone who continued to work at Twitter that you could ask a service .”

Michael Saylor, bitcoin investor and founder of MicroStrategy, a software company that also has 130,000 bitcoins on its balance sheet, also supported Musk’s blue check fee, tweeting, “If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product.” Saylor too tweeted a photo of Musk freeing the blue Twitter bird from a cage, which has been reshared over 7,000 times.

Meanwhile, Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX (a Binance rival), is less optimistic that Musk will turn Twitter into a crypto paradise. In fact, Bankman-Fried turned down the opportunity to invest in Twitter for that very reason, he told a crowd of Forbes Iconoclast Summit conference goers this week.

“We ended up passing because we ultimately checked if he wanted a crypto partner to help with Web3 payments,” Bankman-Fried said, adding, “Is it the case that our visions here are complementary and that it’s anything I can add to that? I didn’t feel that was the case.”

Regardless, Bankman-Fried insists he remains “very excited” about Musk’s takeover. “There’s a lot of upside in what he’s doing,” the FTX founder said. “I trust him to run with his vision and I’m very excited about that.”