On April 25^th, 2022, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion. Twitter accepted Musk’s offer to privatize the platform. While Twitter currently bans comments found as harassment or abuse, as well as what they deem misinformation, Musk is expected to loosen these rules and allow controversial comments to stay.

Musk is also expected to move Twitter toward a subscription model. While the platform currently relies on advertisements to function, the privatization of the company will loosen the pressure to increase ad revenue constantly (NPR). The buyout of Twitter by Musk is unsurprisingly very controversial politically. Some people agree with Musk that the platform is not living up to its potential as a free speech outlet and praise him for the acquisition of the company, while those who oppose Musk claim the billionaire’s actions will only lead to hate speech and misinformation.

What does this mean from the point of view of a college student? Right now, it’s hard to say. Until Musk’s decisions are put into place, we won’t know for sure which direction the company will go. Twitter has been known as a good platform for networking opportunities and student engagement, but if the company becomes subscription-based, the easy accessibility could change.

Elon Musk is currently the richest person in the world, his net worth valued at over $240 billion (Forbes), which is around $100 billion more than the second-place billionaire, Jeff Bezos.