Musk took over Twitter, some users began testing chaos

A sign is pictured outside the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, October 26, 2022. [AP Photo]

Trump said Friday morning in a post on his social media platform Truth Social, leaving no indication of whether he'd return to the platform or not even though Musk has said he would allow it.

"I LOVE TRUTH!," he said, adding Twitter will be "better" if it works to get rid of bots and fake accounts "that have hurt it so badly." Earlier in the day, news outlets reported Kanye West, the rapper legally known as Ye, appeared to be back on Twitter after being locked out of his account earlier this month over his antisemitic posts on the social media platform.

But there was no evidence to suggest the status of his account had changed or that Musk played a role, and there was no sign of recent activity.

Twitter did not immediately reply to a request for comment on whether Ye was back on the platform. The rapper and fashion designer had also been suspended from Instagram, where his account there was recently reinstated.

Meanwhile, dozens of extremist profiles - some newly created - circulated racial slurs and Nazi imagery while expressing gratitude to Musk for his new leadership. One such post shared a breaking news update about Musk taking over the company, tweeting a racial slur and the message, "thank you Elon."

Another anonymous account tweeted, "Elon now controls Twitter, unleash the racial slurs," along with several derogatory comments. "His acquisition of Twitter has opened Pandora's box," the advocacy group Ultraviolet said in a prepared statement on Friday, while also urging Musk, Twitter executives and the company's board of directors to continue to enforce the ban on Trump "as well as violent right-wing extremists and white supremacists."

Some users reacted to the news by threatening to quit, and others made fun of them for doing so.

The terms "Elon," and "deleting," appeared in Twitter's top trends Friday as users discussed the fallout. Speculation also permeated the platform.

Some worried the number of their Twitter followers was plunging, theorising that Twitter may be cleaning up bots. Other users posted unverified reports that their "like" counts were dwindling.

"Elon Musk bought a platform, he didn't buy people," said Jennifer Grygiel, a social media expert and professor at Syracuse University. Grygiel said there will be a flight to quality if Twitter descends into further chaos under Musk.

"In honour of Elon now owning this site, I'd like to start utter chaos," CNN commentator Bakari Sellers wrote in a Tweet.