On Thursday, Elon Musk finally completed the $44 billion purchase of Twitter after several months of disagreement between the parties involved in the deal.
What’s more?
In his first few hours as the new owner of the social media platform, Elon Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Twitter’s longtime head of legal policy and trust, Vijaya Gadde.
Why it matters
The acquisition of Twitter gives Elon Musk sole control of one of the most interactive platforms for social discussion. With the advocacy of Elon Musk for free speech, the platform could see the likes of Donald Trump (former US President) return to the platform.
The Big picture
Elon Musk is acquiring Twitter at a time authorities have highly regulated free speech on social media platforms.
- To this end, several other social platforms, including Trump’s Truth social, have promised free speech to its users.
What to expect
Although Elon Musk has not laid out a clear vision for Twitter, here are some changes to expect according to what the Tesla CEO has pointed out in the past:
At the TED 2022 conference in April 2022, Elon Musk highlighted the need for Twitter to have an edit button. Elon Musk further conducted a survey to determine if his followers would want an edit button. The result showed a 74 percent yes response. In the coming weeks, the social platform might add an edit feature.
Elon Musk is a tremendous supporter of free speech and has in the past condemned the regulation of content beyond the instituted laws of countries. In his first message since acquiring the platform, Elon Musk tweeted a message to advertisers, acknowledging that the platform “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape.”
Also, in April 2022, Elon Musk clamored for longer characters for tweets. Twitter has a 280-character limit, improved from 140 in 2017.
In case you missed it
Twitter’s board of directors accepted Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid to purchase the company just after acquiring 9.1% of stake in the company. Following Elon Musk’s agreement with Twitter’s board of directors, the multi-billionaire developed buyer’s remorse after realizing that fake accounts made up 5% or more of Twitter’s 229 million users.
Mr. Musk then temporarily halted the acquisition of the app to enable him to understudy the social media company to uncover the exact number of fake user accounts. Elon Musk filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seeks to permanently end the deal. Twitter countersued the Tesla CEO to force him to complete the purchase. Eventually Musk gave in a few weeks ago following a deadline given by the court.