‘What does Musk intend to do?’ Your questions about Twitter, answered.

People walk by the Twitter company headquarters in downtown San Francisco on April 25. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Elon Musk — the world’s richest man — struck a deal to acquire Twitter for $44 billion on Monday, giving him control of the highly influential social media site.

Ahead of the agreement, Musk said he sees Twitter as essential to the functioning of a democracy. In a news release announcing the deal, Musk called Twitter “the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.” Even though Twitter serves as a sounding board for political leaders and experts across industries, other social platforms, like Facebook and Tik Tok, outrank Twitter by number of total users.

Some of Twitter’s more than 5,000 employees reacted to the news with shock and dismay. A central concern was that Musk would try to break down safeguards to protect everyday users that workers have built over many years. The deal still needs to be finalized and the process could take weeks or months.

What questions do you have about Musk’s deal to acquire Twitter? Post reporters Douglas MacMillan, Faiz Siddiqui and Rachel Lerman answered your questions on Tuesday. Here are some of the questions they addressed:

• What happened to the poison pill?
• Why didn’t other buyers step forward?
• Will Trump come back to Twitter?

Read the Q&A below.

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Teddy Amenabar, an editor on The Post’s audience team, produced this Q&A.