Elon Musk Officially Owns Twitter; Reassures Advertisers Over Content Moderation

Elon Musk officially closed his deal to buy Twitter after months of back and forth with the social media company’s board. The acquisition was announced on Thursday night. CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal have reportedly left the company. Also fired and escorted out of Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, were general counsel Sean Edgett and head of legal, policy, trust and safety, Vijaya Gadde who played key role the platform's permanent ban of former president Donald Trump. 

This comes ahead of a court-ordered 5 p.m. Friday deadline to close the $44 billion deal.  Twitter's lawsuit against Musk over the purchase will reportedly come to an end after Twitter files for the case to be dismissed in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

Few hours after reports of his official takeover of the social media company, Musk tweeted: "the bird is freed."

In an earlier tweet posted Thursday morning, Musk reassured advertisers that under his ownership, Twitter “aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise.” The SpaceX CEO will formally takeover the social media platform by Friday Oct. 28.

The tweet addressed to advertisers follows a report published earlier in the day from The Wall Street Journal that said, “Advertisers are concerned about the billionaire’s plans to soften content moderation and what they say are potential conflicts of interest in auto advertising.”

Musk had in his past statements supported more free speech and less censorship on social media. He had also said he would end Twitter's permanent ban of former United States President Donald Trump.

In Thursday's statement, Musk said: “I wanted to reach out personally to share my motivation in acquiring Twitter. There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising. Most of it has been wrong.”

The Tesla CEO continued: "The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence. There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society. In the relentless pursuit of clicks, much of traditional media has fueled and catered to those polarized extremes, as they believe that is what brings in the money, but, in doing so, the opportunity for dialogue is lost."

Musk said he didn’t buy Twitter "to make more money," but "to try to help humanity, whom I love."

He reassured advertisers that Twitter will not "become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”

Musk concluded: “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, just as you can choose, for example, to see movies or play video games ranging from all ages to mature.”