What’s Happening With Elon Musk at Twitter?

Elon Musk’s first 10 days answerable for Twitter are making folks overlook about most of the microblogging website’s previous issues.

The world’s richest man accomplished his on-again, off-again $44 billion buyout on Oct. 28, assembly the deadline to avert a trial in a lawsuit Twitter introduced after Musk tried to again out of the deal he signed in April. Since assuming possession, Musk has:

• Fired the corporate’s high executives and dissolved its board, taking management as Twitter’s sole director
• Laid off some 3,700 Twitter staff accounting for half of the corporate’s workforce, citing losses of greater than $4 million per day
• Posted, then deleted, a hyperlink to a conspiracy principle concerning the assault on the husband of Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi
• Blamed “an enormous drop in income” at Twitter since he purchased it on “activist teams pressuring advertisers,” tweeting that the activists are “making an attempt to destroy free speech in America”
• Introduced Twitter would completely droop accounts “participating in impersonation with out clearly specifying ‘parody,'” after many customers modified their account names to “Elon Musk” to protest his plans to cost $8 monthly for the blue checkmark signifying the service has verified an account proprietor’s id.

And that is not every part: For instance, Musk reportedly fired Twitter’s high executives “for trigger” to keep away from paying their golden parachute severance packages.

The workers who weren’t axed had been reportedly instructed by managers to work 12 hours a day, seven days per week, to overtake Twitter’s verification system in per week as Musk demanded. Musk additionally requested some 50 Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) staff to evaluate Twitter’s software program code, in keeping with the identical report, even supposing the maker of electrical autos is a separate, publicly listed firm.

By Nov. 6, Twitter was asking “dozens” of the employees laid off two days earlier to return, both as a result of they had been dismissed by mistake or as a result of their expertise turned out to be important to implement deliberate website modifications, in keeping with studies.

Twitter has since supplied to confirm any account’s id for $8 monthly, whereas delaying any modifications for these already verified till after the Nov. 8 U.S. elections.

How It Began

On Oct. 27, the day Musk accomplished his acquisition of Twitter, he pledged to Twitter’s advertisers he would make sure the platform is “heat and welcoming to all,” not “a free-for-all hellscape the place something will be mentioned with no penalties. Advertisers who use Twitter primarily to advertise their manufacturers fairly than market merchandise have been nervous about Musk’s acquisition of Twitter from the beginning, primarily based on his plans to chop employees and previous statements prioritizing free speech over content material moderation.

Advertisers together with Common Motors Firm (GM), Common Mills Inc. (GIS), and Mondelez Worldwide (MDLZ) have reported just lately halting Twitter adverts, whereas Havas Media Group and Interpublic Group of Firms Inc. (IPG) have urged their promoting purchasers to take action.

On Nov. 2, Musk met with leaders of a number of civic teams, tweeting afterward that he defined to them “how Twitter will proceed to fight hate & harassment & implement its election integrity insurance policies.” He promised them content material moderation insurance policies together with the Twitter exile of former U.S. president Donald Trump wouldn’t change for weeks, till reviewed by the corporate’s deliberate content material moderation council.

The identical day, quite a few civic teams, together with some represented on the assembly, signed a bunch letter to Twitter’s company advertisers, urging them to warn Musk they’d pull adverts “if he follows by way of on plans to undermine the social community’s neighborhood requirements and content material moderation.”

How It is Going

The usage of racist phrases on Twitter reportedly spiked after Musk’s takeover, in keeping with some researchers. Yoel Roth, the pinnacle of security and integrity at Twitter, mentioned a small variety of accounts posted “a ton of tweets that embrace slurs and different derogatory phrases” over the 2 days by way of Oct. 29.

At about the identical time, Twitter was flooded with antisemitic tweets from supporters of the rapper Ye, a good friend of Musk whose account was quickly suspended for tweets about “the Jews,” in addition to professional basketball star Kyrie Irving, suspended by the Brooklyn Nets after he refused to apologize for tweeting a hyperlink to an antisemitic movie. On Nov. 4, Twitter deleted one other tweet by Ye, previously often known as Kanye West, for violating its phrases of service.

Musk’s administration of Twitter has been broadly described within the media as ushering in “chaos,” incomes him unflattering analogies to Trump.

Musk’s Different Plans for Twitter

The controversy over Musk’s personnel and moderation insurance policies has overshadowed his pledges to quickly enhance Twitter’s options. On Nov. 5, Musk tweeted that Twitter would quickly provide customers the flexibility to connect lengthy texts to tweets, “ending absurdity” of screenshots.

Musk adopted up by promising “creator monetization for all types of content material.” He later criticized the service’s notoriously feeble search perform. “That can even get rather a lot higher pronto,” tweeted Musk, whose profile web page on the platform describes him as “Twitter Criticism Hotline Operator.”