After Elon Musk walked into Twitter HQ yesterday literally carrying a kitchen sink (“let that sink in”) it was widely expected that he was going to start swinging the ax and send three-quarters of the company’s employees to the unemployment line. Why? Because that’s what he said he was going to do. That didn’t wind up happening, or at least not yet. But the ax did indeed swing, taking three heads off of the censorship hydra. CEO Parag Agrawal was the first to get his walking papers, followed by Vijaya Gadde and Sean Edgett, two of the company’s top legal advisors. Surely Agrawal knew he was on the way out and likely already had his things packed. But nobody expects the firings to stop now. (National Review)

Elon Musk took over Twitter late Thursday and fired company CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, senior legal representative Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Edgett, the Washington Post reported.

Musk, the world’s richest man, acquired the social media giant through a $44 billion purchase. He reportedly had until Friday to complete the deal.

In a video tweet that went viral, Musk appeared at Twitter’s corporate offices Wednesday carrying a sink, implying that employees would need to accept that he was now in charge.

Before completing his purchase of Twitter, Musk had earlier considered backing out of the deal and paying a hefty fine. Throughout the saga, Musk has publicly criticized Twitter’s leadership.

We shouldn’t be terribly surprised that the mass layoffs didn’t happen all at once. Despite having had plenty of time to analyze the company while this saga played out, Elon Musk can’t possibly know with certainty which employees are responsible for the worst acts of the company such as creating a free speech desert for conservatives, and which ones are doing important work to keep the infrastructure running.

Getting the advertiser situation sorted out will likely take time as well. Musk said just this week that he wants to open the doors to new advertisers that bring meaningful offerings and beneficial products to the table while eliminating the ones that mostly just generate spam. How well Musk can milk advertising revenue will be a major factor in how the company’s stock performs and how much his massive investment will wind up being worth over the long run.

But the big question on nearly everyone’s mind is whether or not the censors will be shown to the door and if Musk will now walk the walk on free speech. Will we see the return of Donald Trump? (It’s worth asking if Trump would even come back if he’s invited now that he has another platform to broadcast his thoughts.) Liberals have been dreading this day and will no doubt be lining up to try to sue Twitter out of existence the first time they see a tweet they disagree with.

We had a good indication of how the account reinstatements will play out this morning. Musk announced that users who were previously permanently suspended will have their access restored.

Having successfully acquired Twitter after months of legal quagmires, Elon Musk now plans to reverse lifetime bans for Twitter users who were kicked off the platform for various speech infractions.

The tech titan doesn’t believe in barring an individual from the social-media site for life, a source told Bloomberg. Twitter has permanently removed a number of political personalities, many of whom are considered right-wing internet provocateurs or conspiracy theorists. They include Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Project Veritas Founder James O’Keefe, Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, and most significantly, former president Trump.

The person with knowledge of Musk’s account reinstatement intentions said it’s unclear whether Trump will be allowed to return to Twitter.

Some conservatives may hold off on tweeting any forbidden thoughts until they are sure that the coast is clear. But I don’t fall into the latter category. Somebody needs to go first and figure out if the reign of the censors has already stopped. Here’s a test tweet that I sent out this morning. If you can see it, then maybe we’re really in the clear or at least getting close to it. If the link is broken, the censors are still scurrying around under the floorboards.

First full day of Elon's Twitter. Testing… Testing…

The vaccines don't stop you from catching COVID.
Men cannot have babies.
If you have to show your ID to get on a plane you should show it to vote.
Joe Biden has obvious cognitive issues.
(hits "Tweet" and holds breath)

— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) October 28, 2022