Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday that Twitter Inc TWR must be “politically neutral” to deserve “public trust,” just days after a $44 billion takeover to take the social media company private.
What Happened: Musk said a politically neutral social media platform practically means “upsetting the far right and the far left equally.”
“For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally,” Musk wrote in a post.
Musk in another tweet said “attacks are coming thick and fast, primarily from the left, which is no surprise,” adding that “the right will probably be a little unhappy too.”
“My goal is to maximize the area under the curve of total human happiness, which means the ~80% of people in the middle.”
See Also: Analysis: Will Elon Musk's Twitter Kowtow To Chinese Communist Party Influence?
Why It Matters: The world’s richest man is paying about $54 a share to buy Twitter, a platform he said is “the bedrock of a functioning democracy” and a place where he has promised to return free speech and debate.
The move has drawn cheer from both the right and the left, likely in equal measure, and both sides are taking to Twitter to voice their opinion.
Several posts such as criticism of the transgender community, 2020 elections, and whether they were rigged started floating around on the platform where content is likely to be less moderated.
See Also: Elon Musk Continues To Take Shots At Trump's Truth Social
Musk is likely to make some key changes to the microblogging platform as indicated several times in recent months.
Price Action: Twitter closed 2% lower at $48.6 a share on Wednesday.
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