Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover leads to mass exodus of celebrities like Gigi Hadid from the platform

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has lost more than a million Twitter users since he took over in October 2022.

Gigi Hadid (27), the supermodel, is the latest in a long-line of famous people to quit the platform.

Other well-known names to leave Twitter since Musk’s acquisition include R&B singer Tony Braxton (55), who said she is shocked at some of the comments she’s seen on Twitter in recent weeks.

Gigi explained on Instagram: “For a long time, but especially with its new leadership, it’s becoming more and more of a cesspool of hate and bigotry. It’s not a place I want to be a part of.”

Toni Braxton added: “Hate speech under the veil of ‘free speech’ is unacceptable; therefore I am choosing to stay off Twitter as it is no longer a safe space for myself, my sons and other POC.”

Mick Foley (57), a retired professional wrestler and actor, has said on Facebook that he is ‘taking a break’ from Twitter. He has cited the ‘new ownership’ and fears of misinformation and hate speech as his primary concerns.

Erik Larson, the comic book creator and artist of The Amazing Spider Man confirmed in an email to NBC that he is no longer on Twitter.

In a bid to stamp out confusion or fun, depending on your opinion, Elon Musk has been suspending anyone impersonating others on Twitter. This led to the US comedian Kathy Griffin having her Twitter account suspended as she changed her account name to Elon Musk.

This didn’t stop Griffin from returning to tweet under her dead mother’s Twitter account. She called him an ‘a**hole’ for joking that she’d been suspended for impersonating a comedian.

Elon Musk’s (51) crusades on free speech, a plan to introduce a subscription for the blue tick feature and his insistence on tweeting his every thought have left many people perplexed about the value of using the platform.

Twitter has more than 390 million users worldwide and 206 million of those are daily users. Twitter made a profit of $5 billion between 2020 and 2021, a 35% increase, and a significant improvement on the 8% and 13% increases the two previous years.

Musk has captured Twitter at its theoretical peak. Whether it can continue an upward trajectory will depend on the man who is viewed by some as a ‘genius visionary’, and by others as a ‘danger’.

His plans to inhabit Mars have caused particular astonishment and concern from space travel experts and well-known astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.

Armstrong’s criticism of Musk was said to have left the inventor and business magnate ‘very sad’. This melancholy could be further deepened if Elon finds he’s been the catalyst for Twitter’s demise.