CNN's Brian Stelter complains that Twitter will be a 'party' with 'no rules' once Elon Musk takes over

CNN personality Brian Stelter's reaction Monday to Elon Musk taking over Twitter and reverting it back to a private company is that the platform will become a free-for-all. He described it on CNN Newsroom as a "party" where there are "no rules."

Stelter led off by presuming that Musk will manage Twitter like he does with SpaceX and Tesla. His primary complaint about this leadership style is what that'll mean for the threat of "misinformation" and the rest of Twitter's rulebook.

That's what led the CNN anchor to say: "Look, who knows. I think that's an example of a broader question for Twitter. Which is: If you get invited to something where there are no rules, where there is total freedom for everybody, do you actually want to go to that party or are you gonna decide to stay home? And that's a question for Twitter users. Some Twitter users might love the idea there's going to be absolutely no moderation and no rules at all. Others might not want to be anywhere near that."

Stelter asked his CNN colleague Matt Egan if he agreed. His response: "No, no, you're right. And what happens to the advertising? I mean, if there's no moderation or little moderation to the advertiser, stay away. What does that do to the business prospects for Twitter itself?"

What Stelter was referring to is how Musk in his remarks on the Twitter buyout news saw that "[f]ree speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated."

Last week, Stelter interviewed the Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz, and in that segment she justified her act of exposing the identity of the "Libs of TikTok" Twitter account owner. But even so, elsewhere, the CNN host also admitted to the prevailing influence the Twitter accounts has had in influencing public perception.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey called out both Stelter and CNN for being purveyors of fake news when it came to what the ex-Twitter boss witnessed on the ground during the 2014 Ferguson protests.

Twitter's current CEO Parag Agrawal called the next six months "a period of uncertainty" as Musk's buyout deal is finalized. This insofar as whether or not former President Donald Trump will be reinstated on the platform, or who will be in charge once the Tesla CEO formally takes control of the Twitter site.

Reuters added that Agrawal would get a $42 million payout if he's terminated within the next year.