I think people are really over-analyzing this move. I think it's motivated by prestige, not money, nor is free speech the heart of the matter.

Twitter is a stagnant company. They have thousands of engineers that in the span of a decade don't seem to produce much at all, nothing visible or memorable anyway. Long-lasting Twitter problems (culture, spam, algorithm issues) never seem addressed. User growth is stagnating as Twitter fails to appeal to "normies" in a way Facebook and other networks can.

A perfect target for Musk to come in, do a few sweeping changes, and get out. Thereby proving once again that he gets shit done where others can't. Case closed.

It doesn't take much. People have been begging for an edit button for a decade. If he'd get only that feature implemented, it will be remembered forever.