Elon Musk tried to buy Twitter back in April. On October 27, he successfully bought the platform for $44 billion. Immediately after closing the deal, he fired at least four executives, including the chief executive and chief financial officer, per The New York Timesand set off a chain reaction of changes across the platform.
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital city square where a wide range of beliefs can be discussed in a healthy way without resorting to violence,” he said Musk tweeted in a note to advertisers shared after the acquisition. “Currently, there is a great danger that social media will splinter into right-wing extremist and left-wing extremist echo chambers, which will generate even more hate and divide our society.”
In a since-deleted tweet, Musk shared days later retweeted an anti-LGBTQ+ conspiracy theory About Paul Pelosi, who was assaulted on October 28 at his and Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home. In a reply to a post of Hillary Clinton, Musk shared an article promoting a conspiracy theory from the Santa Monica Observer, a right-wing website that has a history of promoting conspiracy theories — and even shared an article suggesting that Clinton himself died on 9/11 and she had been replaced by a double, per the Associated Press.
Musk, who has a net worth of $203 billion time magazineAccording to reports, he is the richest man in the world forbes. He has promised to relax Twitter’s content moderation policy, per The New York Timesand has also started allowing previously banned users back onto the platform.
Musk inherits a Twitter-plagued one Challenges, bots, harassment and political actors. A November 1 report from the Electoral Integrity Partnership identified six networks linked to China and Iran that had attempted to influence users ahead of the midterm elections. One of the networks linked to China has been found to share popular right-wing talking points, which is far from an isolated case. Twitter has made significant moves to moderate its content in recent years, but Musk’s recent comments could reverse those changes.
Shortly after taking office, Musk laid off more than half of the company’s workforce, per insideralthough he has since tried to reinstate some of them, per Bloomberg. In response to his acquisition, many Twitter employees, celebrities, and public figures have opted to leave the platform. Read on to find out who clicked delete on a Musk-owned Twitter.