The world’s richest person has officially purchased perhaps its most influential social media platform. Following a $44 billion deal, Elon Musk is the new owner of Twitter, typically making the announcement on the site itself, tweeting “the bird is free”. He then quickly rang in the changes. Gone are four top executives, including the chief executive and chief financial officer.
Who owns Twitter matters because the site has become in many places the national, and even global townhall. This has been for good and for ill. The site has long struggled with various issues, from misinformation to hate speech and of course how to police free speech, most famously when it eventually decided to ban former US president Donald Trump. That decision, and many others, could now be overturned, as Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist”. Indeed, also among those leaving the company is the head of legal, policy and safety.
