But Twitter employees still had not heard from the company’s new owner on Friday. Musk has replied to a couple of posts on Twitter about his ownership, but hasn’t said much publicly.
Musk promised that the social media platform would not become a ‘free-for-all hellscape’
In another development,the auto giant General Motors suspended its advertising on Twitter while it works to “understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership,” .
GM is the only major brand so far to say it will pause or stop ads on Twitter after Elon Musk’s takeover of the company.
Advertisers are hyper-aware of the content on social media platforms and have boycotted YouTube and Facebook in the past for not removing hateful content that could show up alongside advertisements.
On Thursday, Musk posted a note on his Twitter account saying he would not let the site become a “free-for-all hellscape” and appealing directly to advertisers to work with him.
“The bird is freed,” he tweeted after he completed his $44 billion acquisition on Thursday, referencing Twitter’s bird logo in an apparent nod to his desire to see the company have fewer limits on content that can be posted.
The CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc and self-described free speech absolutist has, however, also said he wants to prevent the platform from becoming an echo chamber for hate and division.
Other goals include wanting to “defeat” spam bots on Twitter and make the algorithms that determine how content is presented to its users publicly available.
Yet Musk has not offered details on how he will achieve all this and who will run the company. He has said he plans to cut jobs, leaving Twitter’s 7,500 employees fretting about their future. He also said on Thursday he did not buy Twitter to make more money but “to try to help humanity, whom I love.”
Less that 10% of 266 Twitter employees who participated in a poll on messaging app Blind expected to still have their jobs in three months. Blind allows employees to air grievances anonymously after they sign up with corporate emails.
