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Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover makes the left lose it: ‘It’s like the gates of hell opened’
Commentators shared a wide range of hot takes about the future of Twitter, one of the world's most influential platforms, under the leadership of Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Business
Billionaire industrialist Elon Musk took over Twitter Thursday night and immediately fired several top executives, sending shockwaves throughout the social media platform.
CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde were all fired after Musk had accused them of misleading him and investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform, a source with knowledge of the matter told FOX Business.
Editor-in-chief of The Federalist Mollie Hemingway described the firings as "An excellent start" to Musk's tenure in a tweet.
Co-Host of Breaking Points Saagar Enjeti posted emoji hands waving "bye" while retweeting a post of his from April where he had written that, "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."
Recently ousted CNN host Brian Stelter retweeted a post from Musk from April asking if Twitter was a dying platform. Stelter wrote, "What a long strange trip it's been."
But several others were very upset at the news. Techdirt writer/editor Mike Masnick shared a different opinion about Gadde, claiming, "People do not realize how much @vijaya did for free speech. Twitter is less of a free speech platform without her."
Uproxx writer Mike Redmond wrote, "I don't think any of us are prepared for how quickly this whole site is about to go down. It's a miracle flames aren't shooting out of it already."
"Yay, manbaby with poor impulse control and edgelord tendencies has the helm. Sweet," tweeted writer Dylan Reeve.
"I would be so happy if I’m wrong. But the [sic] all the red lights are flashing here," warned NBC News "disinformation" reporter Ben Collins.
Liberal academic and journalism professor Jeff Jarvis' reaction upon hearing the news was, "The sun is dark." Earlier in the day, he had warned, "This is an emergency! Twitter is to be taken over by the evil Sith lord."
Jarvis is no stranger to Twitter hyperbole. In April when Musk's plans to acquire Twitter first became part of the news cycle, he tweeted, "Today on Twitter feels like the last evening in a Berlin nightclub at the twilight of Weimar Germany."
Others in media expressed more general outrage about Twitter's change in leadership before the news was official, claiming that the platform would suffer, with some even threatening to leave it altogether.
Forbes sustainability senior contributor Dave Vetter tweeted, "After Elon has demolished Twitter, where will you go? Ideas below, please."
He later responded to another commentator by clarifying that "I'm not leaving until the platform becomes essentially unusable or until I'm banned, whichever comes first. But if he does what he says he wants to do, I don't see how Twitter will continue to function."