it's a bit fun to imagine that is the case. It is reminiscent of the "buy the whole farm" scam discussed in the film "Django Unchained". In which a huge outlandish performance is made with the stated intent to buy one seemingly desirable (in the eyes of the seller) item, but buyer's the real item of interest is disguised as just something that comes as part of the sale.
Whether or not he suspected NGOs were involved in the censorship on the governments behalf is uncertain, but the goal of a global communication medium that embraced freedom of speech were his main stated goals.
My original comment was just to imagine if Elon Musk was running the same scam as in the movie when he bought Twitter. I'm not saying he did the scam, just that it would be fun if he did.
By way of support for my silly imagination: there was a bit of theatrics with the purchase and the law suit. And it's not impossible to imagine that he may have lied about the freedom of speech reason.
I'm not quite aware about the govenment overreach, I'll check it later, but so far Shitter has been a dumpster fire of misinformation and spam, and Musk is keeping it that way.
Can we trust such a statement at face value? Should we?
I do, but I assume you don't. That's fine, carry on.
Or to gain control over it, therefore gaining political power as well.