Since becoming its owner, the billionaire has continued to blur the lines on the future of the social network, renamed X in July, the latest change in the platform.
In the space of a year, Twitter became X. The blue bird gave way to a cross streaked with white on a black background. On October 27, 2022, Elon Musk paid $44 billion to acquire the social network created in 2006. A year after this purchase, the businessman with triple American, South African and Canadian nationality has continued to fueling speculation about the future of the platform, whose disappearance has been announced many times. A look back at the year spent by the billionaire at the head of Twitter in five key stages.
1 He acquires the group at a great price
Already the owner of Tesla, Neuralink or SpaceX, Elon Musk is setting his sights on the social network Twitter from the start of 2022, where he compulsively publishes messages, to the point of having become one of the most influential users. While he has been rebelling for several months against the directions taken by management, the regulator of the Washington Stock Exchange revealed at the beginning of April that Elon Musk acquired more than 9% of all shares in the social network. He becomes in fact the largest shareholder, after paying 2.6 billion euros.
Then-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal invites Elon Musk to sit to the board of directors the day after this publication. Which welcomes of “to work” with Twitter management “to make significant improvements” to the social network. However, the atmosphere will deteriorate very quickly. Six days later, the director of Twitter claims that “Elon has decided not to join the board of directors”.
The billionaire then formalized a purchase offer for a surprise amount of $44 billion, well beyond what Twitter was worth at the time. A deal is struck before Elon Musk backs out and Twitter sues him for breaking it. As the trial approaches, the two parties finally announce that Elon Musk has acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022. An investment greeted by a tweet, which made history: “The bird is released.”
2 He leads a staff purge
As soon as he took office, Elon Musk multiplied the dismissal letters. Parag Agrawal was the first to pay the price, quickly followed by Twitter’s financial director and head of legal affairs. He also dissolved the board of directors, whose nine members were fired. In the weeks that followed, the purge continued on a large scale: he thanks nearly 50% of Twitter’s global workforceor nearly 4,000 people.
“As the months went by, the prospect of his arrival in the company began to smell worse and worse”testified in THE World Manu Cornet. This French software engineer was suddenly unable to access his computer after being warned that he had “violated several points of regulation”. Still in a tweet, Elon Musk then assures that he has not “unfortunately no other choice, when the company loses more than 4 million dollars per day”.
Among the staff not replaced, the moderators pay a heavy price. The “Trust and Safety” team, responsible for the security of users of the platform, is decimated to the point of only bringing together around twenty people in January 2023. The new boss of Twitter refutes these figures, affirming that “several hundred people are still working for user security”while assuming that moderation can do without humans, in favor of algorithms.
3 He tries “stupid things”
In the name of freedom of expression, Elon Musk also reinstates the accounts of personalities previously banned, including Donald Trump, before tackling the modification of the certification system for users of the social network. At the beginning of November, its teams launched Twitter Blue, a paid subscription which allows you to obtain more visibility and the famous certified badge – until then free – even if the user’s identity has not been verified. This novelty gives rise to a profusion of fake accounts (including Elon Musk himself).
Caught at his own game, the owner of Twitter suspended this new functionality for a while before reactivating it four months later. Since April, the blue badge has only been awarded to subscribers of the paid plan. An account that imitates the New York Times thus obtains this sesame, to the detriment of that actually held by the American newspaper.
Elon Musk is also increasing attacks against journalists. Some have their accounts suspended and an attempt at media labeling completes the sequence. Mentions “affiliated with a state”, “funded by a government” Or “financements by public funds” appear on the accounts in question. This is the last straw for certain media, including the New York Times and American public radio NPR, who are leaving the platform.
The multi-billionaire warns in a tweet : “Please note that Twitter will do a lot of stupid things in the coming months. We will keep what works and change what doesn’t.” “He follows a so-called ‘test and learn’ strategy: that is to say he throws buoys into the sea then waits for feedback to see if he continues in this direction or if he tries something else”, analyzes economist Julien Pillot on franceinfo. These strategic reversals tire a large number of its Internet userswho leave the social network.
4 He appoints a new boss
Faced with these incessant reversals, some advertisers are also moving away from Twitter. They particularly fear being associated with conspiratorial and extremist accounts pushed forward. Consequence: from the end of January 2023, the fall in advertising revenue is evident. More than 500 companies have stopped buying ads on this social network.
To stop this collapse, Elon Musk is stepping back. In December, he submitted his departure to a vote by Twitter users. Nearly 57% of the 17 million participants in a public survey on the social network validate it. Six months later, Linda Yaccarino was indeed appointed as the new general director. This former advertising director at NBC Universal must “focus mainly on business” according to the group’s boss, who is moving more towards “product design and new technologies”.
Elon Musk declared, in mid-July, that advertising revenue have even fallen by half since its acquisition. Linda Yaccarino is therefore responsible for bringing advertisers back to the platform. The new pair enters into a new strategic phase in June: Elon Musk announces that the number of tweets that can be read daily is now limited at 10,000 per day for verified accounts, compared to 1,000 for unverified users. This “rate limit” must make it possible to contain the massive aspiration of tweets by third parties, particularly those who develop artificial intelligence models.
5 He changes the name to X
If it still remains nebulous, his project has drastically moved away from the spirit of the beginnings of Twitter. To the point that nine months after its acquisition, Elon Musk makes the decision on July 24 “say ‘goodbye’ to the brand” : Twitter becomes X. A cryptic name which takes up that of its first company and its holding company, sowing doubt as to its real objective. “I don’t think Elon Musk put in $44 billion for Twitter, but for X and X is just getting started”, estimates economist Julien Pillot. Like several other experts, he leans towards a shift towards “an object of geolocation, finance, banking services, or even a means of payment“ because “having an influence on finance is very important for [Musk]“.
The nature of exchanges on the social network is also changing. While Elon Musk wanted to make it a space for free expression pushed to its peak, he is now considering making the use of the social network pay. At the same time, X is regularly singled out for its promotion of controversial and hateful content. Since the Hamas attack in Israel, a wave of violent messages and fake news is pouring out, without apparent moderation. Several studies, including that relayed by professors Jean-François Savard and Mathieu Laudriault on the site The Conversationdemonstrate how disinformation is encouraged on this social network, to the point of arousing the ire of the European Commission.