Analysis-Elon Musk deals Twitter a wild card as shareholders seek reforms

FILE PHOTO: Tesla CEO Elon Musk gestures as he visits the construction site of Tesla's Gigafactory in Gruenheide near Berlin, Germany, August 13, 2021. Patrick Pleul/Pool via Reuters

(Reuters) - Elon Musk, Twitter's newest big shareholder, could alter the course of the social media company as management battles a set of proxy proposals focused on topics from civil rights to politics at its upcoming annual meeting, shareholder activists and corporate governance experts said.

Whatever the outcome of Musk's $43 billion bid to buy Twitter outright announced Thursday, investors with opposing political views described the billionaire entrepreneur as likely to work to undo some of the restrictions on content that Twitter has imposed as it attempts to promote free speech while combating hate speech and false information.