Wyoming’s junior U.S. senator welcomed the buyout of social media giant Twitter on Monday by billionaire Elon Musk.
Hours after it was announced that Musk would purchase Twitter, U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis praised the move to Cowboy State Daily.
“Social media is long overdue for some change,” Lummis said Monday. “Elon Musk has floated a number of ideas, and I’m interested in seeing how those changes impact the dialogue on social media and the protection of user privacy.”
This is not the first time Lummis has praised Musk, who has become a controversial figure in recent years due to his high-profile status. Last year, she invited him to move to Wyoming, calling it one of the most business-friendly states in the nation.
In the last month, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has become one of the social media company’s largest shareholders, was offered a seat on the board of directors and turned it down and submitted an earlier offer to buy Twitter, which was declined.
The deal was unanimously approved by Twitter’s board of directors and is expected to close at the end of the year. Twitter’s stock was up nearly 6% following the announcement of the deal, hovering around $51.84 per share.
“Free 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,” Musk said Monday. “Twitter has tremendous potential; I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
Musk currently has around 83 million Twitter followers.
When Musk last offered to buy Twitter, congressional candidate Harriet Hageman told Cowboy State Daily she thought it would be an interesting move.
“Elon Musk is a great innovator and disruptor of the status quo,” Hageman said earlier this month. “We don’t know what impact he will have on Twitter, but right now the platform is an obvious, aggressive opponent of true freedom of expression.”
U.S. Sen. John Barrasso and U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney did not respond to Cowboy State Daily’s request for comment on Monday.
