Elon Musk has completed his takeover of Twitter today after months of indecision and legal wrangling.
The world's richest man finalised his $44bn (£37bn) takeover of the social media platform on Thursday and immediately fired the company's top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal as well as its Chief Financial Officer.
Musk tweeted that 'the bird is freed' and has changed his Twitter profile bio to 'Chief Twit'. He says he wants to remove limits on the kinds of content that people can post on the platform, 'defeat' spam bots, and make its algorithm publicly available.
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However, Musk's takeover also has Twitter'S 7,500 staff fearing for their futures after the Tesla CEO said he plans to cut jobs.
It's unclear whether Musk will use his newfound power to unban controversial users of the platform such as former US President Donald Trump, who was handed a lifetime ban due to what Twitter called 'incitement of violence' around the January 6th insurrection on the US Capitol.
Musk said in May he would "reverse the permanent ban" on Trump and, following his takeover, has removed the decisionmaker responsible for it, namely Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde.
In a Twitter statement, Musk said: "The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence."
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Musk added: "Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences! In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all, where you can choose your desired experience according to your preferences".
Donald Trump previously told Fox News in April that he is not going to rejoin Twitter and will keep using his own social media platform, Truth Social.
Trump said: "I am not going on Twitter. I am going to stay on Truth. I hope Elon buys Twitter because he'll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on Truth."
Musk's takeover of Twitter concludes after he nearly pulled out of the deal, claiming that Twitter had misled him about the number of spam or fake accounts on the platform.
But now, the world's richest man controls what he himself calls the world's digital town square, and he can do whatever he wants with it.
What could possibly go wrong?
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