The future of Twitter is uncertain once Elon Musk’s takeover deal is complete, Twitter’s chief executive told employees on Monday.
Parag Agrawal held a town hall meeting with the company’s staff following the announcement that the board of the social media firm had agreed to a £34.5bn ( $44bn) takeover bid from the billionaire Tesla owner.
“Once the deal closes, we don’t know which direction the platform will go,” Mr Agrawal said.
He also said Mr Musk would join Twitter staff for a Q&A at a later date.
The board unanimously approved the bid, which will now be presented to shareholders for a vote.
The purchase means Twitter will become a private company.
Earlier this month, the Tesla and Space X owner made a surprise offer to buy the platform and put in a bid of $54.20 per share to accquire it.
Mr Musk has also said he believes Twitter should be a place for free speech.
“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,” said Mr Musk as he announced the news on Twitter on Monday.
🚀💫♥️ Yesss!!! ♥️💫🚀 pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
“I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.
“Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
The social media giant has faced mounting pressure over the content that appears on its platform.
Critics argue it has not done enough to tackle misinformation on the site.
Last year, Twitter banned former US President Donald Trump from the platform, citing the risk of "incitement of violence" in the wake of the US Capitol riots.
At the time, Mr Musk said: "A lot of people are going to be super unhappy with West Coast high tech as the de facto arbiter of free speech."
In the UK, chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Julian Knight said it was an "extraordinary development in the world of social media".
"It will be interesting to see how a privately owned Twitter (run by a man who is an absolutist over free speech) will react to global moves to regulate," he said on Twitter.
