The Bayesian, a luxury yacht managed by Camper & Nicholsons, sank near the coast of Porticello, Sicily, at approximately 4:30 AM local time on Monday.

The incident occurred amid severe weather conditions that have been sweeping across the western Mediterranean.

Among the others recovered from the sunken yacht were Morgan Stanley Bank International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy, Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, and one other.

Recovery operations are ongoing to find the final missing person, presumed to be Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, as authorities and local witnesses piece together the events leading to the tragic incident.

Who is Mike Lynch?

Mike Lynch, a prominent figure in the technology sector, co-founded the software company Autonomy in 1996. The company’s rapid success led to its acquisition by Hewlett-Packard in 2011 for $11 billion, making Lynch one of the most influential tech entrepreneurs in the UK.

However, the deal later became the subject of legal disputes, resulting in Lynch’s extradition to the United States in 2022, where he was ultimately acquitted earlier this year.

What is the status of the search and rescue operations?

The Italian Coastguard led search and rescue efforts, using divers and helicopters to locate the missing passengers and assess the yacht’s wreck.

The Bayesian wreck was located 50 meters (164 feet) below the water’s surface, which complicated the search for the missing passengers.

15 people were rescued, including Mike Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who was confirmed to be onboard the yacht.

Bacares, the legal owner of the yacht, was found in a life raft along with other survivors by Captain Karsten Borner, who described the challenging rescue operation amid the stormy conditions.

The focus now is on whether human error was to blame. This includes whether the captain and crew onboard the yacht took necessary measures to mitigate the extreme weather and storm alert that had been issued before the tragedy on Monday morning.

Severe weather conditions contributed

Meteorological experts have highlighted that the severe weather affecting the western Mediterranean is part of a broader pattern of intense summer storms.

A persistent low-pressure system has been over the region since mid-last week, leading to the formation of powerful storm clouds.

While summer storms in the Mediterranean are not uncommon, these recent ones have been particularly intense, causing significant disruption.

This story has been updated as more details were released.

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This latest disruption, which began around 1 pm today [BST] and is not known to be related to the previous outage, affects platforms like Minecraft, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Azure.

What services were affected by Microsoft’s recent outage?

Outlook, the widely used email and calendar system, has been affected. Users have reported being unable to access their emails through the app and the browser.

Microsoft has already acknowledged the issue and is actively investigating the cause. In a post on X, Microsoft 365 said, “We’re currently investigating access issues and degraded performance with multiple Microsoft 365 services and features.”

We’re currently investigating access issues and degraded performance with multiple Microsoft 365 services and features. More information can be found under MO842351 in the admin center.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 30, 2024

The outage also affects Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing unit. According to its status page, an unexpected spike in usage caused Azure Front Door (AFD) components to perform below acceptable thresholds, leading to intermittent errors, timeouts, and latency spikes.

DownDetector, a platform that monitors IT outages globally, has recorded thousands of reports since the onset of the outage. Most issues (55%) were reported on the Microsoft 365 website and 23% on Outlook.

According to DownDetector, nearly 2,000 gamers have also reported issues with Minecraft, the world’s most popular video game, purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion in 2014.

What steps is Microsoft taking to resolve the issue?

According to the most recent update, as of this writing, Microsoft has “applied mitigations and rerouted user requests to provide relief.” They continue monitoring the service to confirm the resolution.

While the exact cause of the Microsoft 365 outage is still under investigation, preliminary reports suggest that the issues may be related to Microsoft’s network infrastructure.

Azure’s status page mentioned that networking configuration changes and failovers to alternate networking paths have been implemented to provide relief.

This outage follows closely on the heels of a global IT meltdown that caused widespread disruptions just days ago due to a faulty CrowdStrike update — read TechInformed’s takeaways from that outage for more context.

For a crash course in the first global Microsoft outage and takeaways from an industry expert, watch the latest episode of TI:TALKS below.

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Cyber security experts claim the attack – which led NHS officials to call a critical incident – on pathology services provider Synnovis was most likely carried out by a group of Russian cybercriminals.

The incident is believed to have occurred on Monday and had a “major impact” on the delivery of services, including blood tests and transfusions, in London hospitals including King’s College Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ and other primary care providers in the capital.

Former National Cyber Security Centre chief executive Ciaran Martin told BBC Radio 4 that the attack was believed to be the work of a Russian cybercriminal gang called Qilin.

He added: “These criminal groups – there are quite a few of them – they operate freely from within Russia, they give themselves high-profile names, they’ve got websites on the so-called dark web, and this particular group has about a two-year history of attacking various organisations across the world.

“They’ve done automotive companies, they’ve attacked the Big Issue here in the UK, they’ve attacked Australian courts. They’re simply looking for money.”

The National Cyber Security Centre is investigating the impact of the cyber-attack along with NHS officials.

Synnovis

The ransomware attack on Synnovis – a partnership between the two hospital trusts and European diagnostics firm Synlab – had been reported to the police and the Information Commissioner, according to a statement by the group’s CEO Mark Dollar.

He added: “It is still early days, and we are trying to understand exactly what has happened. A taskforce of IT experts from Synnovis and the NHS is working to fully assess the impact this has had, and to take the appropriate action needed. We are working closely with NHS Trust partners to minimise the impact on patients and other service users.

“Regrettably this is affecting patients, with some activity already cancelled or redirected to other providers as urgent work is prioritised. We are incredibly sorry for the inconvenience and upset this is causing to patients, service users and anyone else affected. We are doing our best to minimise the impact and will stay in touch with local NHS services to keep people up to date with developments.”

Health attack

Healthcare continues to be one of the most targeted sectors by ransomware attacks, according to a new study from cyber security firm Blackfog.

In the month of May, the healthcare sector saw a total of 57 ransomware attacks across the globe – an increase of 30% on the previous month.  Education, services and manufacturing closely follow, according to the figures from Blackfog’s May State of Ransomware report.

Charlotte Webb, marketing and operations director at Hyve Managed Hosting, claimed that the incident with the London hospitals highlighted some of the challenges faced by healthcare providers, and why they need to diversify digital infrastructure.

“With healthcare providers reliant on digital operations, in an industry where lives are at risk, putting all your eggs in one basket with a single provider means that risk is not spread across multiple platforms, leaving organisations vulnerable in the event of a cyber attack,” she said.

“To mitigate this, healthcare organisations should look at diversifying their cloud approach, in addition to ensuring that their service providers have comprehensive security measures in place, as well as backup and disaster recovery plans ready for these situations, so that patient care is not affected. Adopting a hybrid or multi-cloud strategy, for example, can mitigate risks by distributing workloads across multiple environments, ensuring that an outage with one provider does not cripple the entire system.”

Network visibility is also vital, according to RiverSafe CTO Oseloka Obiora, who commented on the attack.

He said: “There is a large importance for robust cybersecurity measures, especially in the healthcare sector. To enhance readiness, it is essential that security teams adopt robust network visibility to promptly identify and resolve vulnerabilities across systems, minimising the impact of cyber threats to vital infrastructure.”

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The report, titled “AI-Enabled Influence Operations: The Threat to the UK General Election”, finds that while AI’s current impact on specific election results is limited, it poses broader risks to the democratic system.

These include a “degraded and polarised information space” and online harassment through deepfakes. AI could enhance these kinds of threats across the various stages of the UK general election cycle.

The report found that only 19 of 112 national elections since January 2023 showed AI interference. It also found no clear evidence that election results significantly differed from polling data.

However, the confusion created by AI-generated content has damaged trust in online sources, according to the report. Deepfakes have incited online hate against political figures, and politicians could exploit AI disinformation for electoral gain.

Earlier this year, London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for a crackdown on disinformation after a deepfake audio of his voice making inflammatory remarks before the UK’s Remembrance Weekend commemorations was leaked.

Though examples of AI misuse are scarce, they are often amplified through mainstream media, inflating public anxieties about AI’s threat to electoral processes.

The report is the first of two CETaS publications on AI and election security — the second will be published in September — and identifies three categories of election security threats.

Campaign threats that aim to manipulate voter behaviour or attitudes toward candidates or political issues; information threats that seek to undermine the quality of the information environment, confuse voters, and damage the integrity of electoral outcomes; and infrastructure threats target the systems and individuals responsible for securing election processes — using tactics such as ‘hack and leak‘ operations and AI-generated phishing emails against election officials.

The report stresses the urgency of addressing ambiguous electoral laws on AI use, which both domestic and foreign actors could exploit. For example, political parties might misuse AI to fabricate campaign endorsements, undermining the election process.

However, with the UK general election set for 4th July, there is limited time to enhance election security protections.

According to the report, “ambiguous electoral laws on AI use during elections are currently resulting in misuse.”

The Labour Party has expressed concerns about social media platform X’s refusal to remove deepfake audio clips of party leader Sir Keir Starmer from October 2023. Some of these clips have received 1.5 million views.

As such, CETaS calls for immediate actions, including setting more explicit expectations on AI use for political parties and media organisations and analysing data from recent UK local elections to inform contingency planning.

Further suggestions include issuing ‘fair AI use’ guidelines and voluntary agreements for political parties, supporting media with AI threat reporting tools, and launching public AI awareness campaigns.

CETaS has developed a timeline mapping potential AI threats to the UK general election and corresponding countermeasures.

The timeline shows when threats will likely emerge and what outcomes they aim to achieve from pre- to post-election. It’s based on evidence from recent elections and academic literature and estimates the time windows for interventions to mitigate these threats.

The report underscores a pressing need for a coordinated, “whole-of-government” approach to safeguard the integrity of the upcoming UK general election.

With the election date rapidly approaching, the window for implementing robust security measures is narrowing. CETaS concludes that immediate action is essential to mitigate AI-generated threats and ensure public trust in the democratic process.

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The meeting, between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, seeks to mitigate misunderstandings and foster a constructive exchange on AI’s implications for global security.

The US has been vocal about its concerns over China’s rapid AI advancements, emphasising the need for direct communication to safeguard its interests and those of its allies.

Despite the competitive undercurrents, both nations appear to recognise the potential benefits of establishing universal AI norms.

Michal Szymczak, head of AI strategy at software consultancy Zartis, said the talks between the two opposing nations were significant.

“While the White House has made it clear it’s not willing to budge on AI policies, any chance to introduce any parity on AI regulation between China and the West should be explored and are most welcome.”

According to Szymczak,  the quality of AI products and considerations like data privacy, intellectual property, and fairness will be crucial in determining consumer and enterprise preferences.

“For China to successfully export its AI technology to Western markets, it must ensure its products adhere to stringent local regulations to circumvent potential sanctions — similar to the challenges faced by companies like TikTok and Huawei.”

“These factors will likely influence consumer and enterprise decisions, with preferences leaning towards services that offer comprehensive, long-term support in these areas,” he said.

The Geneva talks represent a critical step in navigating the complex landscape of AI governance. However, Szymczak predicts a lack of trust will be a cause for concern.

“It is likely that nations will safeguard their strategic sectors, such as healthcare and energy, from foreign AI service providers until the technology matures and reliable safeguards are established,” he said.

He concludes on the privacy issue: “Significant concerns remain regarding the control users have over their data, and the scope of data collection, which could be pivotal in determining the success of AI solutions as consumers and governments become increasingly aware of and concerned about these issues.”

Stay informed with the latest tech updates and news analysis with TechInformed

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Apple has cancelled plans to develop its own autonomous electric vehicle, with the iPhone-maker instead turning its focus to generative AI, according to reports.

According to an internal announcement, Apple COO Jeff Williams revealed that the majority of its 1,400+ employees who had been focussed on developing the vehicle would now work on developing large language models like ChatGPT

A report from TechCrunch claims the decision to scuttle the project – known internally as Project Titat – will see hundreds of roles axed at the Californian manufacturer. Apple first began developing an autonomous vehicle in 2014, poaching executives from Ford, Lamborghini and Tesla.

The change in strategy comes just weeks after Apple launched its first major entry into a new technology field with the Apple Vision Pro, which went on sale earlier this month.

Biden signs executive order shielding US data from foreign rivals

President Joe Biden has signed an executive order that aims to protect American’s personal data from foreign adversaries, such as China and Russia.

The EO will aim to limit the transfer of datasets – ranging from biometrics and healthcare to geolocation and finance information – to firms based in “countries of concern” while building safeguards around other activities that can give those countries access to people’s sensitive data.

The White House said it doesn’t aim to limit legitimate commerce around data but is targeting commercial data brokers who may sell information to foreign adversaries or US entities controlled by those countries.

“Bad actors can use this data to track Americans, including military service members, pry into their personal lives, and pass that data on to other data brokers and foreign intelligence services,” the White House wrote in a fact sheet announcing the move. “This data can enable intrusive surveillance, scams, blackmail, and other violations of privacy.”

Read more on Biden’s executive order here

Vodafone looking to offload Italian arm to Swisscom in €8 billion deal

Vodafone is in talks to sell its Italian arm to Swisscom in a deal that could be worth up to €8 billion to the British telco, it has announced.

In a statement, Vodafone confirmed it has entered “exclusive discussions” with Swisscom in a cash deal that would see the Swiss incumbent merge Vodafone Italia with its Italian telco arm Fastweb to “create a converged challenger” to the likes of TIM and Wind Tre.

Confirming the talks, Swisscom said if a deal was agreed, it would “bring together complementary high-quality mobile and fixed infrastructures, competencies, and capabilities to create a leading converged challenger”.

It comes as Vodafone – one of the world’s major telecoms operators – is looking to streamline its assets under CEO Margherita Della Valle, who took charge last year. Della Valle has already announced a proposed merger with CK Hutchison’s Three UK in its home market, while Vodafone has also agreed to sell its Spanish business to Zegona Communications in a $5.3 billion deal.

Pichai apologises for Google Gemini’s controversial AI images

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has vowed to address problems with the way its AI Gemini produces images after the AI platform produced historically inaccurate material that had “offended our users and showed bias”

Google had suspended Gemini’s ability to generate images after it was discovered the AI model had produced several controversial and ahistorical images, including racially diverse Nazi soldiers and non-white US Founding Fathers.

Google has already apologised, saying it had “missed the mark” with the images, pledging to re-enable image generation in the coming weeks. The controversy spiralled when the GenAI was found to be creating questionable text responses, such as equating Elon Musk’s influence on society with Adolf Hitler’s.

However, in a leaked internal memo reported on by Semafor, Pichai addressed the controversy directly, saying: “I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias – to be clear, that’s completely unacceptable and we got it wrong,”

“Our teams have been working around the clock to address these issues. We’re already seeing a substantial improvement on a wide range of prompts,” he added.

Connected ring, rollable smartphone and transparent laptops among products launched at MWC24

Samsung’s connected ring, Motorola’s rollable smartphone and a transparent laptop from Lenovo are among the new products making headlines at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Korean smartphone-maker Samsung is expanding its range of wearables to include the Galaxy Ring, which when worn on the finger can offer users more insights into health, wellbeing and sleeping patterns. Though pricing and full details have yet to be revealed, the Galaxy Ring is expected to go on sale later this year.

Also on show in Barcelona was a completely foldable phone from Motorola. Though foldables have been launched in recent years as a new category of smartphones, the prototype from Motorola is “rollable” meaning the device can be wrapped around a user’s wrist like a watch. It includes a material back to make it more comfortable to wear.

New laptops were also showcased, with Lenovo unveiling a new concept that includes a fully transparent screen. The computer looks like a standard laptop with a screen made of a single transparent pane, and a keyboard that does not include physical keys.

Californian firm Alef Aeronautics also brought a concept design for a potential flying car, which it claims is fully road legal, while start-up Joby showed off its eVtol model aircraft in Europe for the first time, in partnership with SK Telecom. The company has outlined plans to launch an air taxi service within the next two years.

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The silicon software firm reported last week that ChatGPT and its API were suffering from “periodic outages” since around midday PST on November 8.

A pro-Russian pro-Palestinian group Anonymous Sudan took to Telegram later to claim responsibility for attack, which it says was carried out in response to the CEO’s past support of Israel.

Other reasons for the attack, listed in the same post, included the use of AI in weapons by the Israeli army and the fact that the company was American “and we are still targeting any American company,” it added.

The hackers additionally claimed that ChatGPT had “general biases towards Israel and against Palestine”.

Anonymous Sudan

Anonymous Sudan, a group that first surfaced in January this year, was also behind a June attack on Microsoft, which caused outages to services such as 365 as well as several attacks in Sweden following a public burning of the Quran.

The self-proclaimed African hacktivist group also claimed to be behind over 24 DDoS attacks in Australian firms, including healthcare, aviation and education organisations.

A DDoS attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted service, server or network, by overwhelming it with traffic, leading to a site crash and/or outages in service.

According to Sergey Shykevich  a researcher at US-Israeli cyber security firm Check Point, which has been closely following Anonymous Sudan, all western organisations are targets from groups carrying out these kinds of attacks – and have been since the Russia-Ukraine war.

“DDoS attacks used to be very popular in the last decade but in the last 5-6 years corporations and governments increased their protection.

“But then a resurgence of geopolitical type gangs emerged from the Russia-Ukraine war and these gangs saw a gap: If public-facing websites are integral to the services they provide, they can cause more damage.

“Hence the attacks against Microsoft in June and Open AI last week. Airport websites are vulnerable too as are banks as when these sites go down it leads to real disruption for the services they offer.”

As well as ensuring there are robust DDoS protection and mitigation software in place on websites, firms also need to secure their networks, their end point devices and their cloud storage, Shykevich advises.

According to the Check Point researcher, hackers claim to be able to bypass networks such as Cloudflare, and are selling this ability on the dark web for US $5,000.

Geopolitics

Like other commentators, Shykevich maintains that Anonymous Sudan is a pro-Islam and Russian state-backed group – which might not even be based in Africa –  with a mission to amplify anti-Western sentiment.

He added that “50% to 60% of its attacks” are carried out in partnership with notorious Russian hackers KillNet.

While Check Point is not actively tracking any pro Israeli hacking groups, the cyber security news website The Cyber Express identified several groups on each side of the divide last month.

Some of these 35 pro Palestinian hacking groups included Ghosts of Palestine and Mysterious Team Bangladesh.

Among the four pro- Israel groups identified were Indian Cyber Force – which claims to have taken down a range of target sites, including the Ministry of Transportation and the Hamas official website. Other pro-Israeli groups include Team UCC Operations and Silent One.

The current war was triggered last month by an attack by the militant group Hamas. So far, the war has killed nearly 11,000 Palestinians, including more than 4,400 children, according to the Gaza health ministry, an agency of the Hamas-run government.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, primarily during Hamas attacks, with 239 people taken hostage by Hamas.

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According to the alert, the attacks are more ideologically motivated than financially and could be ‘destructive and disruptive’ to UK critical national infrastructure (CNI).

The initial threats organisations should be prepared for are distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, website defacements and spread of misinformation, but the report also said they expect an impact on western CNI, too.

Dr Marsha Quallo-Wright, NCSC deputy director for CNI, said: “It has become clear that certain state-aligned groups have the intent to cause damage to CNI organisations, and it is important that the sector is aware of this. In the wake of this emerging threat, our message to CNI sectors is to take sensible, proportionate steps now to protect themselves.”

Today, Oliver Dowden, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is expected to speak at the CyberUK conference in Belfast to confirm this official threat notice.

“Disclosing this threat is not something we do lightly,” Dowden is expected to tell attendees, “but we believe it is necessary… if we want these companies to understand the current risks they face and take action to defend themselves and the country.”

Businesses can’t afford “to leave their digital back door open to cyber crooks and hackers,” he is also due to say.

In response to today’s warning, Achi Lewis, area VP EMEA for Absolute Software offered advice to help organisations prepare for such an attack.

“Cyber-attacks are a case of when, not if, and without a resilient cyber posture, organisations susceptible to malicious threats – particularly when they escalate to attack types such as ransomware.”

“Prevention requires staff training, up-to-date security software, and visibility over devices and applications on a network. Solutions which utilise secure access controls and resilient Zero Trust can provide centralised IT teams with visibility over their entire network,” Lewis said.

Russian DDoS attacks have been on the rise since the Russia-Ukraine war, which has disturbed the likes of NATO, which had a number of websites temporarily disrupted last February, and the MI5 also saw its public website affected by pro-Russian hackers in October last year.

It was also reported in the Independent that Dowden will also take the time to address recent criticism over low-paid cyber security roles in the civil service.

In the last month, the UK government’s economic and finance ministry, the Treasury, advertised the role of head of cyber security with a starting salary of £50,000. According to the job site Glassdoor, the average salary for similar positions in the private sector is over double that at around £130,000.

Dowden will tell the conference: “These are people protecting the systems and public services that millions of people across the country rely on every day, so we should want the very best people in charge of them. We must be competitive to stay ahead.”

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Chancellor Rishi Sunak and minister for DCMS Nadine Dorries took the stage at this week’s London Tech Week to reveal the new framework, which was delayed from early 2020 following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Business lobby groups have been calling on the government for an overarching tech strategy for some time now, with tech bosses complaining of a lack of talented workers since Brexit. Current estimates suggest the skills gap is costing the UK economy as much as £63bn.

The new strategy – an update on the government’s 2017 plan – is largely focused on ensuring that the UK’s public and private tech infrastructure is fit for purpose.

Sunak said new measures to keep the UK’s tech sector “fit for the future” include an external review of the UK’s computer processing capabilities, as well as a new expert council to tackle the digital skills gap. The council will bring together industry leaders and training experts from companies ranging from Amazon Web Services to neo-bank Starling.

Working directly with employers, the council – led by digital minister Chris Philp and Phil Smith, chair of British semiconductor firm IQE – will encourage investment in employer-led training to upskill workforces.

During his speech at the Queen Elizabeth Centre in Westminster, Sunak also announced a new ‘Hyper Potential Visa’ which will allow people who have graduated from top universities abroad to go through a smoother visa process to get into the UK and support them in building their own tech start-up.

Slowing growth

Another key announcement was the start of an external review into the future of compute to ensure the UK has the capacity it needs to maximise the potential for AI, Internet of Things sensors and quantum computing. The review will be led by machine learning specialist Professor Zoubin Ghahramani, vice president of research at Google.

Estimates suggest the government’s approach to supporting and strengthening the digital economy could grow the value of the UK’s goods and services by £41.5bn by 2025 and create a further 678,000 jobs.

In his speech, Sunak added that tech innovation generated around half of the UK’s productivity growth over the last 50 years but that this is now slowing down. However, he added that the rise of AI may herald a new wave of innovation.

“What really matters for economic success is innovation. If we want our country to succeed, we need to do what we’ve always done and embrace new technologies and the people and culture that creates them,” Sunak noted.

He added: “If we can back our capital, people, and ideas. If we encourage that incredible spirit I see everywhere in this country, then we can be confident that Britain stands on the cusp of a new era of innovation and change.”

Meanwhile Dorries – secretary of state for UK Digital, Culture, Media and Sport – used her speech to outline some of the UK’s recent success stories. She unveiled new figures that reveal over £12bn in venture capital funding has been secured by UK tech start-ups and scaleups this year already.

That puts the UK just behind the US and ahead of China on funding secured by tech start-up firms in the year to date, she added.

Dorries also stated that last year a new tech unicorn (one that is valued at £1bn or more) was created every 11 and a half days in the UK –  and that this was more than double the number of UK unicorns from 2017.

On the new Digital Strategy, she said: “Essentially, this is the roadmap that the entire government will follow for the next decade to reinforce our status as a global tech superpower.”

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Musk initially bid for the company earlier this month but the Twitter board seemed poised to reject the offer, with speculation that the firm would use a poison pill strategy to keep the world’s richest man at bay.

However, Twitter tonight announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Musk, who will pay $54.20 per share in cash to take the company private.

Bret Taylor, Twitter’s Independent Board Chair, said, “The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”

Musk, a prolific and often controversial user of Twitter, has promised to make significant changes to the platform after he became its largest shareholder by accumulating a 9.2% stake in the company. Earlier today, he tweeted: “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”

Musk – who has more than 83 million followers on the platform – has suggested several changes including the possibility of an edit button for tweets – which Twitter confirmed it was considering – and removing adverts from the platform’s premium service, Blue.

Another key concern, according to the Tesla and SpaceX boss, is free speech.

Announcing the takeover, he said: “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.

“I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

Last week, reports revealed Musk had secured $46.5bn (£35.6bn) in financing to fund a possible hostile takeover, with the billionaire – worth around $265 billion – also putting up $21 billion of his own money for the deal. The funding commitments were outlined in a filing with the US financial watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Twitter is one of the world’s biggest social media companies. The microblogging site – launched by Jack Dorsey Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in 2006 – has around 217 million users worldwide.

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