My understanding is that their users were calling them to account pretty heavily on Mastodon. This is a way for them to curtail that (and save face) without answering to the users there over the CEO’s pro-Republican/pro-Trump statements. They can’t control the narrative on Mastodon so they’re running away.

This is despite the fact that a lot of privacy focused potential customers aren’t using Twitter or Bluesky or Threads. In fact, the userbase on Mastodon that followed their account was larger than that of both Bluesky and Threads.