Chaotic. That one word likely best describes the situation for Twitter, both at Twitter HQ in San Francisco (as well as myriad offices around the world) and in the Twittersphere as employees and users of the micro-blogging service struggle to take in the implications of a takeover by Elon Musk.
Famously the world’s richest man, on occasion at least, Musk was forced to complete a takeover bid for Twitter for around $44 billion US, some of it bankrolled by Canadian financial institutions. Musk had backed himself into a proverbial corner when he attempted to nix the deal. Any court action triggered by an attempt to walk away from the offer to buy Twitter looked to be messy, and likely a defeat for Musk.
So it came to be that Musk, in a show of bravado, walked into Twitter HQ carrying a kitchen sink, a staged photo op if ever there were one (Tweet: “Entering Twitter HQ - let that sink in.”) Having disparaged the company over any number of issues, ranging from bots to the account shutdown of one Donald Trump, Musk tweeted “The bird is freed,” followed by “Let the good times roll.”
Well, it would be difficult to find anyone, employee, or user, who would say the first few weeks of Musk ownership have been “good times.” Chaotic? Definitely. Messy? Very much so.
Once the deal closed Musk acted almost immediately to axe two key executives, CEO Parag Agrawal and general counsel Vijaya Gadde, who was head of the company’s legal policy, trust, and safety division, and who had shepherded Twitter’s attempts to manage difficult accounts such as that of the former American president.
Once ensconced, kitchen sink and all, as the company’s new owner, CEO, and only director, Musk tweeted his rationale for laying off around half the employees: “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered three months of severance, which is 50 per cent more than legally required.”
Former Twitter head and co-founder Jack Dorsey stated he was willing to take some blame for the layoffs, noting he had let the company grow too big in recent years. It should be noted that Twitter wasn’t the only social media business facing tough decisions. Just days after the 50 per cent cuts at Twitter, Facebook and Instagram parent Meta announced it was paring its workforce by some 11,000, around 13 per cent of its employees.
Within hours of the Musk takeover it became apparent users were leaving Twitter and bulk advertising buyers were becoming skittish that client ads might appear in proximity to nasty tweets.
Such moves spooked Musk and he attempted to defuse the matter by tweeting:
“Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints.”
“To be super clear, we have not yet made any changes to Twitter’s content moderation policies.”
Followed by: “No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.”
That didn’t seem to wash and anyone with a few thousand followers or more likely began to notice their counts falling off.
When certain high profile users began modifying their profile to mimic Musk’s he was none too amused. His advocacy for free speech, along with a suggestion to vote Republican in the American mid-term elections, apparently had limits. After shutting down comedienne Kathy Griffin’s account he tweeted:
“Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying “parody” will be permanently suspended.”
When he took over as Twitter’s sole shareholder he changed his profile description to “Chief Twit.” As controversy over various moves and changes erupted he changed it to read “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator.”
As if that weren’t enough, Musk then took on the issue of verified accounts, aka Twitter Blue, variously suggesting every account would eventually be verified, to announcing a charge for verified accounts, and then for good measure suggesting even a subscription fee for all users might not be sufficient to stave off bankruptcy.
Musk seemed to lurch from one disastrous move to another in his first two weeks on the job as Twitter’s CEO. As this column was being written, various large corporations, among them Lockheed Martin and Eli Lilly, were essentially pleading for Musk to undo the damage he had done to verified account holders by effectively allowing anyone to impersonate any individual or company as they saw fit.
Will Twitter survive? Although thousands of users have left Twitter, it isn’t clear they’ll all move to a single other platform. While distributed platform Mastodon has grown rapidly these past few weeks, it doesn’t appear to be a home for everyone. Dorsey’s new venture, Bluesky, is also a possibility.
It is difficult to see Twitter moving forward under Musk. Surely some of the institutions holding the debt used to finance the Twitter takeover will put pressure on Musk to step aside, at least from the day-to-day operation of the business.
Perhaps the last word belongs to Musk, if he is to be believed, when he said he didn’t buy the micro blogging service to make money but “to try to help humanity.”
He also added a cautionary statement: “Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.”
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