The Viewpoint: Elon Musk's Twitter Purchase

Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter for $44 billion has thrown up some interesting perspectives over the week. We look at five of them.

• Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s flip-flop surrounding the purchase of Twitter had most of the online world in a quandary. The battle between Musk fans and Musk haters kept Twitter alight.
• On 25 April, Musk announced the purchase of Twitter. Since then, this news has dominated the technology news cycle with extreme views on either side of the debate.
• Many liberal progressives have called this the beginning of the end of Twitter. Many have even decided to quit the platform altogether in favor of other social media networks
• We have seen tweet threads that challenge Elon Musk’s claims that he is a “free speech absolutist”. Many who have been blocked by Musk have been tweeting those screenshots as well.
• Musk has been busy on Twitter himself. He’s so far suggested adding an edit button, slashing Twitter’s subscription pricing, having time-outs instead of bans on Twitter accounts, among other things.
• But on the other hand, there also seems to be a consensus emerging that the price at which Musk bought Twitter - $44 billion - is the best offer the loss-making platform could have got.