Elon Musk claims he wants to help humanity, not make more money by acquiring Twitter after a long process where it was often claimed he was backing out of the deal.
One of the earliest social media platforms, Twitter was founded 16 years ago as a 'microblogging' platform for short, text based medium for sharing information. It swiftly shifted to an image and later video-sharing platform and became a go-to for media outlets, business and politicians for making announcements, sharing breaking news and, over time, opinion.
In recent years Twitter had devolved into a toxic environment of opinion, trolling and users blocking others and censorship of tweets not being in accord with the political views predominant in its California base.
The platform infamously removed then US president Donald Trump just prior to his defeat as president in January 2021 after the US Capitol riots.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk agreed in April to a US $44bn deal to buy the platform, but sought to withdraw in July due to concerns about the accuracy of information provided by Twitter.
Musk said on Thursday US time:
"I didn't (buy Twitter) because it would be easy. I didn't do it to make more money. I did it to try and help humanity, whom I love."
Read the full statement here:
Whilst it had been rumoured Musk may dismiss as much as 75 per cent of Twitter's workforce, Musk has since moved to allay those concerns.
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