As Musk buyout looms, Twitter searches for its soul

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A toxic cesspool. A lifeline. A finger on the world's pulse. Twitter is all these things and more to its over 217 million users around the world — politicians, journalists, activists, celebrities, weirdos and normies, cat and dog lovers and just about anyone else with an internet connection.

For Elon Musk, its ultimate troll and perhaps most prolific user whose buyout of the company is on increasingly shaky ground, Twitter is a “de facto town square” in dire need of a libertarian makeover.

Whether and how the takeover will happen is anyone’s guess. On Friday, Musk announced that the deal is “on hold,” while tweeting that he was still “committed” to it. Earlier in the week, the billionaire Tesla CEO said he’d reverse the platform’s ban of President Donald Trump if his purchase goes through. The same day, he also said he supported a new European Union law aimed at protecting social media users from harmful content. Twitter's current CEO, meanwhile, fired two top managers on Thursday.

All that said, It’s been a messy few weeks for Twitter. One thing is certain: the turmoil will continue, inside and outside of the company.

“Twitter at its highest levels has always been chaos. It has always had intrigue and it has always had drama,” says Leslie Miley, a former Twitter engineering manager. “This," he says, "is in Twitter's DNA.”

`WHAT PEOPLE ARE THINKING ABOUT'

From its 2007 start as a scrappy “microblogging service” at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, Twitter has always punched above its weight.

At a time when its rivals count their users by the billions, it has stayed small, frustrating Wall Street and making it easier for Musk to swoop in with an offer its board could not refuse.

But Twitter also wields unrivaled influence on news,...