Well, they sold themselves as such. Mr Musk would have you believe that twitter IS the hypothetical town square. I'm not sure what is scarier- that he truly believes he can buy free speech itself or that he might be right.
Not only that, but investors aren’t happy with steady, consistent performance. It has to be constant financial growth at all costs. It doesn’t matter if you hollow out an over 100 year old super valuable brand into a dead worthless husk (Sears) as long as you can extract short term growth from it for the shareholders.