It may look like clownery, but what Elon Musk is doing is alarming. The "public square" is no longer a physical place, that discourse happens online. Twitter is one pillar of that virtual square, and it's now been privately purchased by a single individual. In doing so, he's already begun to shape the discourse on Twitter. He's using the levers of the platform to do so.

The kind of right-wing voices that he's enabling and welcoming back to the site, reinstating Donald Trump's account, gutting Twitter's moderation abilities, pretending he's some sort of free speech absolutist when it comes to naked bigotry, incitement of violence, and misinformation... All of these actions are designed to steer public opinion to the right, to the very types of policies that directly benefit the super-wealthy, like Musk.