Elon Musk reached a deal to buy Twitter for approximately $44 billion on Monday, promising a more lenient approach to content moderation on the platform as he promotes his interests, attacks critics, and considers the social and economic issues of more than 83 million followers.

Musk said in a joint statement with Twitter that he wants to make the service "better than ever" with new features, such as getting rid of automated "spam bots" and making its algorithms open to the public to increase trust.

Following a hands-off approach to content supervision caused many people to worry that the platform would become more of a haven for misinformation and hate speech, something it has worked hard in recent years to mitigate.

The deal was strengthened about two weeks after the billionaire first revealed a 9 percent stake in the platform. Musk said last week he raised $46.5 billion to finance the Twitter purchase, pressuring the company's board to negotiate a deal.

Twitter said the deal was unanimously approved by its board of directors and is expected to close in 2022.

In recent weeks, he has expressed a number of proposed changes to the company, from loosening content restrictions—such as the rules that suspended former President Donald Trump's account—to ridding the platform of fake and automated accounts, and moving away from an ad-based revenue model. Musk believes he can increase revenue through subscriptions that give paying customers a better experience, and perhaps even an ad-free version of Twitter.

When asked during a recent TED talk if there are any limits to his concept of "freedom of speech," Musk said that Twitter or any forum "is clearly committed to the laws of the country in which it operates. So obviously there are some limits to freedom of expression in the United States, and of course Twitter must comply with these rules."

Some users said on Monday that they were planning to leave the platform if Musk took over. He replied on Twitter: "I hope even my worst critics stay on Twitter, because that is what freedom of speech means."

Musk pledged to make Twitter a haven for freedom of expression and develop this digital social communication platform to make it more fluid without exclusion or discrimination.