We don’t know what Elon Musk is on, but we don’t want any of that

Elon Musk kicked off April 27 with two things - first, he explained what exactly he meant by “free speech”, and then he criticised one of Twitter’s top-ranking employees, and thereby one of Twitter’s past decisions.

Musk responded to a tweet shared by YouTuber Saagar Enjeti regarding a story from Politico which mentioned that Twitter’s top lawyer, Indian-born Vijaya Gadde, had called for a staff meeting post Musk’s buyout and had allegedly expressed concerns about the platform’s future and cried during the meeting.

“Vijaya Gadde, the top censorship advocate at Twitter who famously gaslit the world on Joe Rogan's podcast and censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, is very upset about the @elonmusk takeover,” Enjeti tweeted.

Musk responded to Enjeti’s tweet with - “Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate.”

Following Musk’s tweet, Gadde faced a barrage of abusive comments on Twitter with not a word from Musk or any other Twitter employee including CEO Parag Agrawal. Gadde, and Twitter, were defended by one Twitter engineer Conner Campbell.

Later in the day, Agrawal shared a rather cryptic tweet stating - “I took this job to change Twitter for the better, course correct where we need to, and strengthen the service. Proud of our people who continue to do the work with focus and urgency despite the noise.”

He also shared a tweet posted by Techdirt writer Mike Masnick who said - “So, one thing that hasn't received much attention and should: For all the talk about "free speech," @twitter's legal team is actually one of the MOST aggressive in actually fighting in court to protect the free speech rights of its users, including their right to anonymity.” - with a “Yep”.

While Agrawal seemingly battled to keep the focus on the good work at Twitter, Musk clearly had other plans. After sharing a screenshot of app listings, Musk pointed out that Trump’s Truth Social was on top of the charts on the App Store beating out both TikTok and Twitter. He then added that while Truth Social was a terrible name, the app existed because Twitter censored free speech. And how Truth Social should have been called Trumpet instead.

Musk followed this up with a meme featuring Gadde, taking his stance in this whole Left Wing-Right Wing controversy and Twitter’s bias to another level. And two hours later, Musk felt he needed to explain his “stance” a bit more.

“For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally,” Musk tweeted.

Musk then went on to post a whole bunch of tweets with each getting more bizarre than the next:

“Twitter DMs should have end to end encryption like Signal, so no one can spy on or hack your messages”

“Next I’m buying Coca-Cola to put the cocaine back in”

“Let’s make Twitter maximum fun!”

“Listen, I can’t do miracles ok”

All this while Musk’s explanation about “free speech’ remained pinned on his profile.

Musk and Twitter’s transaction is yet to be completed, and one of the clauses for this to go through includes the fact that while Musk can tweet about his deal, he cannot criticise Twitter.

“Elon Musk has publicly attacked two high ranking Twitter employees today, putting him in violation of the disparagement clause in his buyout agreement. It's unclear if he's just unravelling in general, or if he's purposely trying to get the buyout deal voided.” Palmer Report pointed out following Musk’s initial tweet calling out Twitter over suspending a news organisation’s account.

If the deal does not go through, Musk has to pay a $1 billion termination fee, which still saves him $43 billion, and with Tesla stocks tanking, maybe that’s what Musk wants.

Twitter's ex-CEO Dick Costolo reacted to Musk's tweets aimed at Gadde with:

And Musk responded to Costolo's tweet with a tone-deaf reply about political neutrality.

Sure, he can buy Subway too and put whatever drug he wants in that, and his latest series of random tweets don’t exactly violate any deal clauses, but as the sole owner of Twitter,  this sort of behaviour does not bode well for the platform.

So far, Musk was an eccentric who enjoyed dad jokes and s&^tposting, not much has changed, to be honest, but now it is bordering around the unhinged. Many people are also concerned about his Right Wing inclinations but perhaps we can go into a full-blown crisis mode if he REALLY allows Trump to return to Twitter (the former US prez has said that he won’t, but we really don’t trust either of them).

Is Musk trying to render the deal null and void? We’ll have to wait and watch while random tweets pile up.

Also Read: Not even a day in, Elon Musk criticises Twitter, India-born Twitter executive gets abused online

Also Read: Investors worried over potential Musk U-turn in Twitter buyout