Jameela Jamil leads charge of users leaving Twitter following Elon Musk takeover

Jameela Jamil has announced she is leaving Twitter after Elon Musk purchased the social media platform for $44 billion.

The Tesla founder and world’s richest man finalised the deal to buy Twitter on Monday, making it a privately owned company.

Despite Musk urging his “worst critics” to remain on the platform ahead of the sale announcement on Monday, many Twitter users have announced plans to close their accounts, including Jamil.

Ahead of the deal being confirmed, the former The Good Place actress told her one million followers: “One good thing about Elon buying Twitter is that I will FINALLY leave and stop being a complete menace to society on here. So it's win win for you all really.”

Once the deal was confirmed, she followed through with her word, saying she feared how the platform would change for the worse under Musk’s ownership.

For her last tweet, she shared a series of images holding her dog, Barold.

“Ah he got twitter. I would like this to be my what lies here as my last tweet,” she wrote. “Just really *any* excuse to show pics of Barold. I fear this free speech bid is going to help this hell platform reach its final form of totally lawless hate, bigotry, and misogyny. Best of luck.”

Elsewhere, several other high-profile Twitter users announced their departure from the platform.

Liberal activist Shaun King’s account was disabled on Monday evening, hours after he tweeted Musk’s deal was about “white power”.

“At its root, Elon Musk wanting to purchase Twitter is not about left vs right. It’s about white power,” he said. “The man was raised in Apartheid by a white nationalist. He’s upset that Twitter won’t allow white nationalists to target/harass people. That’s his definition of free speech.”

New York Times columnist Charles Blow said the buyout was the “push he needed” to leave.

“Looks like I’m about to say goodbye to Twitter as well,” he wrote. “I’ve been pulling back a bit from social media anyway. This will be just the push I need to go all the way on this app.”

In a statement announcing the deal on Monday, Musk 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.”