Now that Elon Musk has signaled his intention to follow through on his purchase of Twitter, analysts are looking forward, to what changes we may see on the platform under the new leadership.

One of the biggest changes will be the reinstatement of previously banned accounts, including President Donald J. Trump’s account.

In May, at a Financial Times Event, Musk had referred to the banning of the former President after the January 6th riots as “morally wrong,” promising to reverse the ban when he took over the company. In addition, in Musk’s text messages with CEO Parag Agrawal, which were revealed in Twitter’s lawsuit, Musk indicated he intended to reinstate all non-spam accounts which had been permanently banned, with the exception of any accounts which, “explicitly advocate violence.” Analysts note, this could have profound effects on both, the upcoming midterms, as well as the 2024 Presidential election.

Also possibly affecting  future political campaigns, could be the return of political advertising on the platform. Presently Twitter bans political advertising. Musk has indicated his distaste for advertising as a business model, and said Twitter should seek out alternative sources of revenue. However Musk will also have investors who will be driving him to make the platform profitable. The return of political advertising could affect future election outcomes. However how it would affect them, and which candidates or advocacy groups would avail themselves of it, is still unclear.

Also potentially affecting future elections would be the aggressive campaign Musk has promised to eliminate bot and spam accounts from the platform. Bot and spam accounts are extensively used by political advocacy organizations, as well as some governments and governmental agencies, and this too will affect the way political dialogs, zeitgeists, and misinformation travel on the platform. Critics have already begun to sound the alarm over the potential proliferation of hate speech, extremism, conspiracy theories and large-scale disinformation campaigns. As there is no data extant on the degree to which various parties makes use of such devices, it is unclear what the effect of such actions will be, only that there is likely to be an effect seen when it occurs.

Musk was also urged by a messager whose name was redacted, to hire a VP to handle the enforcement of Twitter policies. The sender recommended someone like Black Masters, a venture capitalist who is presently running for the Senate in Arizona as a Republican.

For his part, Former President Trump has indicated he will not return to Twitter, instead focusing his messaging on his new competitor platform Truth Social. Many other banned Twitterers have all moved to other platforms such as Truth Social, Telegram, Gab, and Substack, so it is not clear to what degree users who were banned will return.

Analysts say that Musk will almost certainly also purge the upper leadership of Twitter, including CEO Parag Agrawal. In the released text messages, it was indicated specifically friction had already developed between the billionaire automaker and Agrawal.

Analysts also expect to see Musk engage in some cost cutting, likely including mass layoffs, and reorganizing various divisions in the company. Musk has told employees during an all-hands meeting that only exceptional employees should expect to remain with the company. Previously Twitter devoted considerable effort to policing content, not just for illegal content,  but for content it deemed hate speech, extremism, conspiracy theories and disinformation, as well as some content which did not adhere to socially conscious ideologies. It is expected Musk will eliminate that relatively manpower-intensive activity to cut costs, reducing control over the dialog more toward policing the strictly illegal.

It is not clear how quickly the deal will now be wrapped up and we will begin to see changes in the company. Most experts think it unlikely the deal will be completed quickly enough to have a significant effect on the 2022 election. However given Donald Trump has signaled he will run again for President in 2024, any changes could definitely have an impact on that election.