Musk says open to buying Substack to take on corporate media

New Delhi, Dec 28

After purchasing Twitter for a whopping $44 billion, Elon Musk on Wednesday said he is willing to acquire Substack that lets independent writers and podcasters publish directly to their audience and get paid through subscriptions.

Reacting to a user who asked him if it would make sense for Twitter to buy Substack and more tightly connect the two platforms, Musk replied: "I'm open to the idea".

"Twitter plus Substack creates instantly massive competition for obsolete legacy corporate media," the user posted.

Musk's reaction came after witnessing a lukewarm response from mainstream and corporate media on various versions of "Twitter Files" that he has revealed via independent journalists.

"Why is corporate journalism rushing to defend the state instead of the people?" Musk further asked.

The Twitter CEO was reacting to Leighton Woodhouse, a freelance reporter and documentary filmmaker, who posted on Substack that "establishment journalists' response to the Twitter Files is that of a profession committed to protecting the state instead of exposing it".

Substack is an US online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters.

It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers.

Substack was founded in 2017 by Chris Best, the co-founder of Kik Messenger, Jairaj Sethi, a developer, and Hamish McKenzie, a former tech reporter.