'Poison pill' afforded Twitter more time to consider offerĪfter accepting and then rejecting an invitation to join Twitter's board, Musk dropped a new bombshell on April 14th with his unsolicited $54.20-a-share offer to buy the whole company and take it private.īut lack of details about how Musk would finance the deal left many doubting he was serious. "Without vigorous content moderation, the platform Musk seeks to own would be swamped by spam, porn, anti-vaccination misinformation, QAnon conspiracies, and fraudulent campaigns to undermine the midterms and 2024 presidential election," Barrett said. Other experts, including Paul Barrett at NYU's Stern School for Business and Human Rights, have similar concerns. "That kind of platform wouldn't work for anyone, whatever their political views."
"A platform that moderated only illegal speech would quickly be overcome by spam and garbage," said Jameel Jaffer with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
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Musk tweeted on Monday, before the deal was unveiled, "I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means."īut some observers say if Musk relaxes content rules, Twitter could be overrun by misinformation and toxic posts.
"Once the deal closes we don't know which direction the platform will go," the CEO said. 6th Capitol riot, Agrawal said that was a question for Musk. The company plans to bring in Musk to answer employees' many questions about what the deal means for them.Īsked whether Musk might reinstate the account of former President Donald Trump, who was banned after the Jan. Twitter is not currently planning layoffs, the CEO said. Agrawal will remain CEO until the deal closes, but it's unclear what will happen after that point. But many questions remain unanswered, including how much of his own time Musk, who's already CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, will spend on Twitter as well as who will lead the social media company.Īt a company-wide meeting on Monday afternoon, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told employees much about the future is up to Musk, according to a person who attended. If the deal goes through as expected, Musk will have the power to reshape the company and platform as he pleases. Twitter employees have lots of questions about the deal He began calling for changes to the platform, including loosening its rules over what users are allowed to post, banning bots that post spam, and making its algorithm public. On April 4, he revealed that he'd accumulated a 9% stake, making him the company's biggest individual shareholder. Musk began accumulating Twitter shares in January. The maverick entrepreneur is a prolific user and outspoken critic of Twitter, where he has more than 83 million followers and regularly posts memes, boosts his companies Tesla and SpaceX, and squabbles with critics. "Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," he said in Monday's announcement. Musk has vowed to "unlock" Twitter's potential by loosening what he sees as unfair restrictions on free speech. The agreement comes less than two weeks after Musk first offered to buy Twitter, sending the company's board and management into crisis mode as they scrambled to figure out whether Musk was serious and whether his offer fairly valued the company. Musk will pay about $44 billion, or $54.20 a share, to take the social media company private, according to an announcement from Twitter. Twitter has struck a deal with Elon Musk, handing the world's richest man control of a social network that has far-reaching influence on politics and society. Elon Musk, Tesla Motors CEO, speaks at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing "cyber rodeo" grand opening party in Austin, Texas on April 7.