Shonda Rhimes, Toni Braxton, and Sara Bareilles have joined a long list of famous faces hitting the "deactivate account" button on Twitter, just one week after Tesla CEO Elon Musk finalized his controversial takeover.
The world's richest man finally acquired the popular social media platform on October 27 in a $44 billion deal, six months after first starting the process.
Following this takeover, Musk has announced that the company would be undergoing a lengthy list of significant changes - including dissolving the board of directors, mass layoffs of staff, and introducing an $8-a-month fee for blue checkmarks, per Fox Business.
In addition to a lawsuit filed by recently fired employees this week against the company - as well as a "massive drop in revenue" that irked Musk - was the news that numerous celebrities and public figures have chosen to remove their Twitter accounts in the wake of the takeover.
Now, following Musk's acquisition, Grey's Anatomy showrunner Shonda Rhimes announced her departure from the microblogging platform in a tweet, writing: "Not hanging around for whatever Elon has planned. Bye."
"Welp. It's been fun Twitter. I'm out. See you on other platforms, peeps. Sorry, this one's just not for me," Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles also tweeted.
RnB icon Toni Braxton has also joined the growing list, commenting: "I'm shocked and appalled at some of the 'free speech' I've seen on this platform since its acquisition. Hate speech under the veil of 'free speech' is unacceptable; therefore I am choosing to stay off Twitter as it is no longer a safe space for myself, my sons and other [people of color]."
Although Braxton's account is still active, she has not tweeted since sharing her post.
"Hey all - I'm out of here. No judgement. Let's keep the faith. Let's protect our democracy. Let's try to be kinder. Let's try to save the planet. Let's try to be more generous. Let's look to find peace in the world," This Is Us executive producer, Ken Olin, announced.
Though, these departures aren't anything new. In fact, people vowed to leave in April, when Musk first announced his plans to buy Twitter. British actress, Jameela Jamil, tweeted to her 1 million followers at the time: "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."
"Looks like I'm about to say goodbye to Twitter as well. 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," New York Times columnist, Charles Blow, added.
Post-doctoral researcher, Caroline Orr, tweeted: "For those who've asked: Yes, I’m staying on Twitter. There are still a lot of good people working at Twitter, and we have no idea what it will look like under Elon Musk’s ownership. What we *do* know is that if all the decent people leave, it'll get bad here a whole lot faster."
This comes after Amber Heard's account was also deactivated, along with departures from big names like Mick Foley, Tea Leoni, Brian Koppelman, and Alex Winter.
As more and more people grow increasingly unhappy, it's a wonder how many people will be left on Twitter in the coming months.
