How Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover Turned Into Chaos: QuickTake

Immediately upon acquiring Twitter Inc. for $44 billion, Elon Musk axed most top executives and the board, and quickly embarked on a plan to lay off roughly half the company’s 7,500 employees. His goal is to remake the social network into a profitable one that stands for free speech. But in his haste, he’s rattled advertisers, regulators and many of the most ardent tweeters.

1. What is Musk trying to do?

The tech billionaire has portrayed himself as saving humanity from what he perceives as an existential threat — the censoring of speech by a “woke mob.” But he also has more urgent needs: Musk borrowed heavily to acquire the ...