Elon Musk’s Twitter Buy Evokes Criticism, Hope, And Humour

Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion, less than three months after he started amassing shares of the social media platform that facilitates public discourse.

His buyout to take the company private evoked worries over free speech, hope that he may strengthen the company, and a meme fest.

"We should be worried about any powerful central actor, whether it's a government or any wealthy individual — even if it's an ACLU member — having so much control over the boundaries of our political speech online," The American Civil Liberties Union tweeted.

U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren termed the deal "dangerous" for U.S. democracy.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com Inc., took a barb citing Tesla Inc.’s business interest in China. "Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?"

But Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey backed Musk. "...Elon is the singular solution I trust," he said in a tweet. Musk has also urged his critics to not leave the social media platform, "…because that is what free speech means."

Musk, with more than 83 million followers in Twitter, has alleged that Twitter’s algorithms are biased and user count is manipulated by bots. The Tesla Inc. Chief Executive has promised to "authenticate all real humans" on Twitter and "defeat the spam bots or die trying!"

The deal sparked social media jokes, and meme creators are loving it.