I didn't know the author was mainstream before I put my comment. And he wrote for nytimes, so can see where some of the "negativity" came from :-).

IMO, twitter is not a social media company. It's competing with media and that too mainstream media. This is where Elon is taking that company and instead of paying a few elite journalists, he wants to focus on citizen journalism and with the work along creator incentives and community notes, he hopes to create a more diverse platform with a hyper relevant and personalized news platform. Look at how much he harps on town square concept. It clearly is where he intends to take twitter to!

But, it's the long game. In the short term, he needs all the attention he can get to keep the focus on twitter and for that he is creating a lot of sensationalism. Whether you like it or not, media is completely falling for this narrative and is hyper focussed on twitter and Elon.