Elon Musk’s recently released text messages with other billionaires, family members, investors and Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) executives signalled how the world’s richest man would change Twitter with “drastic” action if he bought it.
In those texts, he mentioned paying to tweet and for memberships to tackle the fake account issue that has been bothering the billionaire since he first agreed on a deal.
The tycoon also wants to relax content checks and allow exiled users like former US president Donald Trump back on the site in a “free speech” move, which was texted to ‘TJ’, reportedly his ex-wife Talulah Riley.
"Would be great to unwind permanent bans, except for spam accounts and those that explicitly advocate violence," he wrote in a message.
In April, before he finalised his deal to buy Twitter, Musk texted that "drastic" action would be needed to fix the 16-year-old microblogging platform and, a month before, hinted at improving digital asset-related experience.
In March, Musk texted: “Crypto spam on Twitter really needs to get crushed.
“It’s a major blight on the user experience and they scam so many innocent people.”
The South Africa-born billionaire’s legal team gave the messages as part of a lawsuit filed by the social media company trying to make him go through with the US$44bn deal reached in April.
When he stepped away from the deal in July, Musk demanded more data to determine the number of fake accounts or bots.
On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that Musk's lawyers were saying Twitter would not accept his renewed offer for the company, despite Musk saying he was once again happy to go through with the US$54.20 per share purchase.