JAKARTA - Just hours after Elon Musk started a new era on Twitter Inc as the owner, the billionaire was immediately flooded with requests and demands from banned account holders and world leaders.
The flood of requests underscores the challenges facing Tesla Inc CEO to balance promises to restore free speech while preventing the platform from going down to "graft," as he promised in an open letter to advertisers on Thursday, October 27.
Former US President Donald Trump, who is permanently banned from Twitter on charges of inciting violence after the riots on the capital on January 6, 2021, welcomed the takeover. But he only said a little about his return to Twitter.
"I am very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands, and will no longer be run by Radical Left Crazy and Maniak who really hate our country," Trump said.
Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and vice chairman of the current Russian Security Council, tweeted his congratulations: "Good luck @elonmusk in overcoming political bias and ideological dictatorship on Twitter. And out of Starlink in Ukraine's business."
Others asked Musk to overturn the sentence imposed by social media platforms. In response to @catturd2, an anonymous account with 852,000 followers, known as a big supporter of Trump's election fraud claims, and who said it was "forbidden shadowing," Musk tweeted "I'm going to dig more today."
The editor-in-chief of the RT, Russia's state-controlled radio broadcast, shot Simonyan, asked Musk to "refill the blocking of RT and Sputnik accounts and remove the ban on my shadow as well?"
Pressure is increasing on Musk and Twitter as he will speak to Twitter staff on Friday after closing the deal.
Ligma Johnson had it coming 🍆 💦 pic.twitter.com/CgjrOV5eM2
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
"Hey @ElonMusk, now you have Twitter, can you help against Trudeau's online censorship bill?" tweeted Canada Proud, an organization that works to elect Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
"First I heard," Musk replied in a tweet on Friday.
Several employees who spoke to Reuters on Friday said there was no communication from management about what happened next.
Musk is expected to speak to employees on Friday October 28, but the employee said they had not received any notification until the afternoon.
Two sources familiar with the matter said Musk's team was investigating Twitter's code and asked questions about how the aspect of the platform works. Musk also joined the company's Slack channel last Friday.
Musk also tweeted last Friday that Twitter would form a "complex content moderation board with a very diverse point of view," and that there was no major decision on the moderation or recovery of accounts to be made before it was held.
Despite calls to advertisers last Thursday that he hopes to make Twitter "the world's most respected advertising platform," at least one major automaker - GM - said it was temporarily halting its ads and working to "understand the direction of the platform under their new holdings."
Employees also continue to worry about the future of their work. Less than 10% of the 266 Twitter employees who participated in polls on the Blind messaging app are expected to still have their jobs in three months. Blind allows employees to submit complaints anonymously after they register with company email.
Musk himself has sacked Chief Executive Twitter, Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and head of legal affairs and▁rekora Gadde's policies. He accused them of misleading him and Twitter investors for the number of fake accounts on the platform.
Agrawal and Segal were at San Francisco's Twitter headquarters when the deal was closed and escorted out of Twitter after they were sacked.
Musk, who also runs the rocket company SpaceX, plans to become interim CEO of Twitter. Musk also plans to remove a permanent ban on users. Twitter, Musk and executives did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the media on the matter.
Before closing the deal, Musk entered Twitter headquarters on Wednesday with a big smile and a▁Duniak sink, then tweeted "The ball absorbs." He changed his Twitter profile description to "Chief Twit."
European regulators also repeated previous warnings that, under Musk's leadership, Twitter would still have to comply with the region's Digital Service Act, which imposes a major fine on companies if they do not control illegal content.
"In Europe, the bird will fly with our EU rules," tweeted EU industry chief Thierry Breton on Friday morning.
Member of the European Parliament and civil rights advocate Patrick Breyer advises people to seek alternatives where privacy is a priority.
"Twitter already knows our personality very well because of its extensive supervision of each of our clicks. Now this knowledge will fall into Musk's hands."
Musk has indicated that he sees Twitter as the foundation for creating "super apps" that offer everything from money transfers to online shopping and transportation.
But Twitter is struggling to engage the most active users who are very important to businesses. This "heavy tweeter" account is less than 10% of the overall monthly users but generates 90% of all tweets and half of global revenue.
Musk will face the challenge of building revenue "given that the controversial opinion he seems to want to give him more freedom is often unpleasant to advertisers," said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Susannah Streeter.
As news about the deal spread, some Twitter users quickly marked their willingness to leave.
"I would be happy to leave if Musk, well, acted as we all expected," said a user with the @mustlovedogsxo account.
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