Walter kon cite at the Arizona
state university.
Judy: Musk owns Twitter after a
takeover.
Within hours, he fired several
top executives and took the
company private at $54.20 a
share.
The future of the company --
reporter: He has promised to
roll back policies and restore
some suspended users including
former president trump horp
praised the takeover and to
prioritize and this could be
overrun with hate speech and
bots.
And musk tweeted saying the
reason I acquired Twitter
because it is important to have
a common digital town square.
Twitter.
Senator cotton: Be a
free-for-all where anything can
be said.
Elizabeth is author of the new
letter this week.
Welcome to the "Newshour."
Let's start with what we know.
Elon Musk has been in charge and
made big changes and why on
Earth he walks into the Twitter
headquarters --
>> I think Elon Musk is one of
the better known Twitter users
on the platform, and there is a
meme of letting that sink in and
so there you are.
As for his changes, if you are
familiar with the court case,
you know we got a bunch of his
text messages when he was trying
to get out of this deal and he
was going to join the board
rather than take over the
company but after the C.E.O.
Asked him to refrain from making
fun of Twitter on Twitter, musk,
two minutes later in the text
log is like actually, I don't
think I need to be on the board.
And after that, he launched his
takeover bid.
He is not are fond of anybody
who reported to him after there
was a mass firing.
>> I want to ask you about what
this means for the company.
$44 billion is what he paid and
64 .20 a share.
Is this actually good?
>> It is good for Twitter
shareholders.
And musk priced in the premium
before the markets declined.
If you are a Twitter
shareholder, this is great.
Maybe if you are working, it is
less great.
He is talking about cutting
costs.
There was a reporting this week
that 75% of employees could be
expected to be fired and Twitter
was facing layoffs before the
musk bid, so I think there are a
lot of people who are worried
about their jobs.
Separately, he has talked a
little bit about wanting to get
rid of spasm bots and promote
freely speech.
They are contact moderation
issues and if you get rid of
those people, there are going to
be more spam bots.
>> You see one in five U.S.
Adults are on Twitter.
Of those, 1-5 said they faced
harassment and that is before
the takeover and I take you over
to the that overnight from were
racial slurs being tweeted
across the platform and alone
controls Twitter, unlesh the
racial slurs against black
people and jewish people.
Is this what the future of
Twitter holds?
>> It is hard to tell.
A platform that is full of
raishal slurs and Twitter gets
89% from advertisers.
We saw that statement on
Thursday.
But the other thing I will say
before the show, some of the car
companies that advertise on
Twitter, GM is the one I'm
thinking of has started
cancelling their advertising.
So, I think if we do find more
racial slurs and more
harassment, that is not an
environment advertisers want to
be in and will have a hard time
to meet the numbers to pay off
the debt that he chose to buy
this company.
Other thing we are keeping in
mind, he says he will do a lot
of things and maybe do half of
them.
So, you know, it's still pretty
hard to tell what is going to
happen over the next weeks to
months even.
>> On that point, do you see him
allowing president trump back on
the platform?
He said he was open to that?
>> I imagine that's what his
oversight board is.
Elon Musk's reputation is on the
line.
If he is personally and the
consequences is not great.
The oversight board is to shield
him from that blowback.
>> And former president trump
was banned because leaders after
January 6 that the tweets could
foment more violence on the
ground.