Former US President Trump says he's 'very happy' about Musk's Twitter takeover
Oct 29, 2022
By Reena Bhardwaj
Washington [US], October 29 : Former US President Donald Trump lauded Twitter's new ownership under billionaire Elon Musk on Friday.
"I am very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands, and will no longer be run by Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs that truly hate our country," Trump said in a Truth Social post following Elon Musk's completed takeover.
On Thursday night, Musk fired a number of Twitter executives including CEO Parag Agrawal and Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's longtime head of legal, policy and trust, who was in charge of significant account decisions, including suspending Trump.
The former president said Twitter "must now work hard to rid itself of all of the bots and fake accounts that have hurt it so badly. It will be much smaller, but better."
Elon Musk said that the social media company "will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints." That means suspended accounts like those held by former President Donald Trump won't immediately return to Twitter.
"No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes," Musk added.
On Thursday, Musk wrote in a posted note to Twitter advertisers that "Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences! In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all."
Hours after news of Musk's takeover broke, a fake statement from Trump began circulating online.
"Congratulations to Elon Musk on his purchase of Twitter. Many people are saying that change was needed, as the old management was too concerned with the woke agenda," the fabricated statement read.
"I have been told that my account will be back up and running on Monday -- we will see. Happy to be able to engage with an African-American-owned business!"
In July, in a surprising turn of events, Elon Musk who had long been showing his interest to buy Twitter terminated the deal. The Tesla CEO did so by alleging that Twitter violated their mutual purchase agreement by misrepresenting the number of spam and fake bot accounts on its platform.
After Musk put out the deal termination announcement, the market saw a sharp decline. Later, Twitter sued Musk accusing him of using bots as a pretext to exit a deal.
