THE deed is finally done. Twitter has officially been transferred to Elon Musk after the billionaire completed the massive US$44 billion purchase before the court-ordered deadline.
But there is still much uncertainty looming about the future of the platform following the purchase, which Musk had fought tooth and nail to withdraw from.

Tweeting “the bird is freed” and later “let the good times roll,” the new Twitter boss, whose ‘bio’ on the app refers to him as “Chief Twit”, Musk reportedly fired a number of Twitter’s top executives including its Chief Executive Officer, Parag Agrawal, the BBC reported.

Official documentation confirming the handover was filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.
There’s no guessing, however, where Musk’s intentions lie. “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…

“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,” Business Insider quoted Musk as saying in April.

Some believed Musk was primed to pave the way for the return of former US President, Donald Trump, to Twitter after Trump’s account was “permanently suspended” by the platform following the January 6 Capitol Hill riot, for which a special committee of the United States Congress only recently sentenced one of Trump’s top former officials, Steven Bannon, to jail for contempt.

The legal battle surrounding the buyout of Twitter felt, in some parts, like a messy public celebrity divorce. It was clear Musk wanted out and he was prepared to use whatever possible avenue he could.
One thing was clear, however, which is that even for the Tesla and SpaceX Founder, the idea of following through with a US$44 billion deal was scary stuff, especially with his previous moves to ensure he set aside some money, just in case the Delaware-based Court of Equity, which heard the legal case brought against Musk by Twitter’s Board of Directors, ruled that he must follow through with the purchase.

One cannot shake the feeling that something about this imbroglio feels like a joke gone awry. Musk has moved into his new office, and is changing more than the face of the company. The extent of those changes in a world where social media increasingly threatens to bring down democracies, are yet to be understood.