The billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX now officially owns Twitter, popular microblogging and social network service. After months of court drama between Elon Musk and the Twitter board, multiple sources noted the $44 billion acquisition deal was completed Thursday night, cementing Musk’s ownership of the social network platform.
Shortly after taking over Twitter, Musk has already dismissed some of Twitter’s top executives, according to reports. At least four top Twitter executives have been ousted, including the chief financial officer Ned Segal, chief executive officer Parag Agrawal, and general counsel Sean Edgett, among others.
Following the moves, Musk recently tweeted that “the bird is freed.”
What does Elon Musk want from Twitter?
There have been wide speculations about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. However, in a letter to Twitter advertisers on Thursday, the billionaire cleared the air by stating that he acquired the social network platform to “help humanity” and not to “make more money.” Musk also believes that Twitter is an important tool for the future of civilization.
“The reason I bought 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,” Elon Musk added. ” I didn’t do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love.”
Elon Musk’s plans for crypto
Besides addressing the issue of censorship, Musk has previously proposed adding cryptocurrency payment support on Twitter. Similar to WeChat, Musk told Twitter employees in June that it “would make sense to integrate payments into Twitter so that it’s easy to send money back and forth” through fiat currencies and crypto.
Many speculate that the takeover will gradually drive Twitter into the Web3 ecosystem, given Elon Musk’s interest in cryptocurrency. Elsewhere, reports noted that Twitter has begun working on its crypto wallet prototype, which will allow users to send and receive cryptocurrencies.
