Twitter employees will this afternoon gather together to discuss a takeover after the world’s richest man, Elon Musk announced his intentions to buy the entire company in a tweet. 

Mr. Musk blasted out “I made an offer” this morning and linked to a Securities and Exchange commission filing that fills in the details of his offer. 

Mr. Musk, whose wealth derives from his ownership of Tesla, SpaceX, and a host of other companies, promises, “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”

In materials included in his bid for ownership, Mr. Musk maintained, “Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.” Mr. Musk hopes to pay $43 billion for Twitter, which works out to $54.20 a share.

Forbes estimates Mr. Musk’s total worth as $265.5 billion. The latest twist in the long running drama between this modern day Midas, who enjoys more than 81 million followers on the platform, and Twitter comes after the outspoken chief executive on April 4 bought a 9.2 percent stake in the company. 

When news broke this week that he would not assume a place on the company’s board, which would have activated a 14.9% ownership cap, some speculated that Mr. Musk was hunting for bigger game. That has now come to pass.

The attempt by Mr. Musk to purchase Twitter has spotlighted questions over moderation and freedom of speech on the platform. On March 25, Mr. Musk tweeted a poll that asked respondents if they believe “​​Twitter rigorously adheres” to the proposition that “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.”

More than two million people responded, with more than seven in ten of them answering in the negative. No doubt contributing to this sense of unease around Twitter’s governance is the fact that President Trump is permanently banned from the platform, even as President Putin, the Taliban, and the Ayatollah Khamenei retain their accounts. 

Another source of anger towards Twitter was the coverage of Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop, which earned the New York Post a blanket ban in 2020, but which has now been corroborated by the New York Times.

Others point to how the social media platform censored speculation on the origins of Covid-19 despite a range of views on the source of the deadly virus. 

In a letter sent to Twitter’s chairperson, Bret Taylor, Mr. Musk wrote that he believes Twitter to be “the platform for free speech around the globe” but that “the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form.” 

It remains to be seen whether this self-styled “free speech absolutist” can not only criticize, but control, the platform he uses to such great effect. It is now up to Twitter whether it accepts the Mr. Musk’s offer or continues as a publicly traded company.