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While I agree the notion is noble, I believe it’s simpler to assume he incorrectly saw value in owning the town hall, and allowed his own hubris to suppress any of his own doubts.

I genuinely don’t believe this was originally about free speech. I think he noted that as a compelling argument for owning the cheapest social media network.

If this was truly about free speech, I’d imagine there’s more effective ways of doing so. He could have funded journalism programs. He could have been established decentralized communication platforms that can’t be tampered with. None of those require betting the farm, and all of those directly promote free dialogue.

Where exactly is he protecting free speech? He’s banned people for saying things that hurt his ego.

What do you think Twitter's stance on free speech is now vs before?

I think it's much better now. It's not a "free speech absolutist" place, nor should it be. Elon Musk never subscribed to this, as far as I could recall. It's basically rejecting things that are illegal and that are very offensive. "Very offensive" is subjective, of course, but if you move the line far enough, it becomes less of an issue. There are occasional things that fall outside of this category (aptly described in this thread), but, on the balance, it is nothing like a censorship that it was before.