Elon Musk, now perched atop Twitter, urges his followers to vote for Republicans

New Twitter proprietor Elon Musk is telling his greater than 100 million followers on the social media service to solid ballots for Republicans in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

In a tweet addressed to “independent-minded voters,” the Tesla chief government suggested voting for a Republican Congress, saying that “shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties.”

Musk’s political message comes simply over per week after he posted a tweet advancing baseless allegations concerning the latest assault on the husband of House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat. The tweet was later deleted. Musk on Sunday additionally tweeted that “Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world. That’s our mission.”

Since finishing his $44 billion buy of Twitter late final month, Musk has moved swiftly to place his imprint on the struggling firm. Along with firing former CEO Parag Agrawal and different prime executives, Musk has laid off roughly half the corporate’s workforce, or about 3,700 folks, in a transfer to slash prices.

Musk, who has characterised himself as an advocate totally free speech, has additionally vowed to chill out content material moderation on the platform after a “council” opinions its insurance policies. On Sunday, he tweeted that Twitter would completely droop any account that impersonates one other particular person. Kathy Griffin was amongst these to lose her Twitter privileges after the comic and others modified their show names to “Elon Musk.”

Yet the takeover has additionally led quite a few main firms to droop their promoting on Twitter, together with Audi, General Mills, GM, Mondelez and Pfizer, amid stress from human rights teams. Musk on Friday mentioned that has brought about a “massive drop” in income on the firm, whose development had slowed sharply this yr and which continues to lose cash. 

Previously, Musk has expressed his need to make Twitter much less reliant on promoting, partially by charging an $8 month-to-month price for verification.