Elon Musk Tells Twitter Advertisers Platform Should Be 'Common Digital Town Square'

After an intense legal battle, Tesla CEO and Neuralink co-founder Elon Musk’s deal to buy Twitter is finally going through, and Musk tweeted a statement to Twitter advertisers Thursday morning to share why he decided to buy Twitter and his ideas for the future. Musk now has the opportunity to make Twitter truly a “digital town square” enabling free speech for everyone, particularly for those targeted by the government, media, and other institutions for not going along with whatever the latest narrative happens to be this millisecond.

“I wanted to reach out personally to share my motivation in acquiring Twitter,” Musk’s tweeted statement began. “There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising. Most of it has been wrong.” Musk then framed his motivation as free speech. “The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” he said. “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”

Musk has repeatedly expressed support for free speech and concern about its suppression on social media before. Some continue to be wary of the billionaire, however, as his recent vocal support for demands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — which runs an authoritarian surveillance state — and his Neuralink brain chips seem to indicate Musk’s contradictory views.