Ruling the roost What Tesla tycoon might do with new acquisition

With Elon Musk at Twitter’s reins, the question now turns to what he plans to do with it in the weeks and months to come. Here is what we might expect:

- Dan Milmo

Freedom of speech concerns

One of the most contentious issues around the deal, back when the world’s richest man first expressed interest in buying Twitter, was Musk’s concerns over free speech . He is a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” who has raised concerns about Twitter downplaying certain posts with its algorithms that curate what a user sees.

A cache of texts disclosed in a filing in September , when Twitter was taking Musk to court over his attempts to try to back out of the deal, gave further evidence of his concerns. The podcaster Joe Rogan asked the Tesla chief executive in April – after his acquisition of a stake in the company had been revealed – whether he would “liberate Twitter from the censorship happy mob”.

Musk replied: “I will provide advice, which they may or may not choose to follow.” In a note to advertisers yesterday, Musk said he had acquired Twitter because he believed it was important for the “future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner”. However, he conceded that the platform could not become a “freefor-all hellscape”. “In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all,” he wrote.

Musk has also said he is against censorship “that goes far beyond the law”, but legislation is changing in the UK with the online safety bill (although its freedom of speech provisions might now be tweaked ) and in the European Union with the Digital Services Act .

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