Elon Musk's Twitter page is displayed on the screen of a smartphone with Twitter logo in the background in Los Angeles, July 8, 2022. (Photo: CFP)

Elon Musk said Thursday he is acquiring Twitter to enable "healthy" debate on a wide range of ideas and counter a trend in which social media splinters into partisan "echo chambers."

The billionaire entrepreneur pursued the deal "because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence," Musk tweeted on the eve of a court-imposed deadline to finalize the $44 billion acquisition.