Elon Musk is the richest man in the world and he just paid US$44 billion to buy Twitter Inc.. He claims he wants the platform to serve a higher purpose, but his actions show otherwise.

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Diane Francis: Elon Musk must be held accountable for Twitter Back to video

“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence. There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far-right-wing and far-left-wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society,” he said.

He also promised to prevent bigotry and dishonesty from littering the site as it sometimes has in the past. “Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about our world,” he said. Twitter would form a “content moderation council” consisting of “widely divergent viewpoints,” he pledged.

But on Nov. 19, Musk unilaterally reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account along with the former president’s old tweets complete with conspiracy theories, baseless claims, inaccuracies and allegations that the 2020 election was stolen as a result of widespread voting fraud. These are the tweets that got Trump suspended from the site in January 2021 and they are once again publicly available.

Ironically, Trump responded to his reinstatement by declining the offer and said he will concentrate on posting to his competing platform, Truth Social. Even so, his Twitter account had nearly 100,000 followers by 10 p.m. the day it was reinstated.

Another curious move was that Musk spent a fortune buying Twitter, then took a sledgehammer to the place. After declaring himself “Chief Twit,” he fired half the staff on Nov. 3, then a week later, during his first meeting with employees, told the survivors to expect 80-hour work weeks, sparking another mass exodus on Nov. 18. Worse, he also alienated advertisers, some of whom have suspended spending amid concern he will turn the platform into a “hellscape” of abusive commentary.

There’s little confidence in Musk as a social media boss. In the past, he has posted incendiary tweets, repeated bogus conspiracy theories, and run afoul of securities authorities. In 2019, he was charged by the U.S. Securities Commission because his tweets violated laws. Last year, he was accused of ignoring his pledge to have any tweets regarding Tesla Inc. vetted by company lawyers. Now that he controls the platform, concerns are that he will use it to promote his companies or political friends, protect nasty regimes in countries where he does business, such as China, or criticize competitors.

This is why once Musk took control of Twitter, the European Union’s chief platform regulator waded in immediately and posted a reminder to Musk that in Europe, the “bird” would have to “fly” by EU rules.

Hopefully, other jurisdictions in North America and around the world will also put Musk on notice that Twitter will be regulated if more persecution, hate, bullying, fraud, propaganda, trolling, or libel is permitted.

So the communications world awaits to see if Musk can create an ethical and healthy social media entity. He’s certainly talented. He’s a combination of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford who has launched and runs four incredible companies that are engaged at the leading-edge of everything, from Tesla’s electric cars and solar power systems, to SpaceX’s rocket ships, Neuralink’s biotech implants, and the Boring Company’s ability to burrow in record time tunnels that may eventually replace traditional road and rail transit systems.

But Musk’s recent shenanigans have made him a punchline and his actions to date belie his mission statement. Social media, like traditional media, is responsible for providing accurate public discourse. As Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, wrote after he recently quit: “We exposed government-backed troll farms meddling in elections, introduced tools for contextualizing dangerous misinformation and, yes, banned president Donald Trump from the service. The work of online sanitation is unrelenting and contentious.”

If Musk doesn’t hold Twitter accountable to the public interest, then governments should.

Read and sign up for Diane Francis’ newsletter at dianefrancis.substack.com