Musk’s ultimate aim in acquiring 73.5 million shares, worth about $3 billion, isn’t clear.
In years past, Twitter and other social platforms have taken fire for allowing harmful speech ranging from incitement to violence to coordinated harassment and racial abuse.
Industry analysts and legal experts say Musk could begin advocating for changes at Twitter immediately if he chooses.
“What he could be worried about is if enough of his tweets start to look like disinformation, that Twitter says ‘we’re doing our job against disinformation.’” Gordon said.
Anthony Fauci, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke for breaking the social media site’s rules forbidding hate speech, and right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars show for abusive behavior.
But such absolutism would not be welcome by advertisers who are Twitter’s chief revenue source, said Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at GroupM.
Twitter’s stock surged nearly 30% Monday.
The funding was far from secured and the electric vehicle company remains public, but Tesla’s stock price jumped.
The commission said it issued administrative subpoenas while investigating whether Musk and Tesla are complying with disclosure controls in the 2018 agreement.