On Thursday, Elon Musk closed the hotly contested acquisition of Twitter after a roller coaster of a ride that lasted more than six months. The self-proclaimed free speech absolutist now has the keys to the kingdom, or as he terms it, the “digital town square where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner.†His first order of business? Fire the leadership and declare himself the Chief Twit.
“the bird is freed,†Musk tweeted late last night (11:49 EDT).Â
Musk has been critical of Twitter’s content moderation policies, among other things. His $44 billion bid to acquire Twitter was initially met with resistance from the leadership and the Twitter board, members of which went so far as to resort to a poison pill strategy to keep the technocrat at bay.
In the ensuing months between April 2022, when Musk first announced his plans to take over Twitter, and October 27, 2022, when he closed the acquisition of the microblogging platform, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO made his intentions known.
Musk even responded to the then Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal with a poop emojiOpens a new window , rejecting the company’s claim of spam/fake accounts constituting less than 5% of total users. This tweet made it to Twitter’s legal move against Musk to prevent him from backtracking from the deal in July this year.
Essentially, in four months, the Twitter board went from blocking Musk, who at the time was the largest individual Twitter shareholder with a 9% stake, from any takeover plans to forcing him to follow suit on his $54.20 per share offer; the failure to do so would entail a $1 billion termination fee. Perhaps an exit strategy that presented itself to abandon a sinking ship?
Well, Musk certainly believes this, at least from a “humanity†point of view. Twitter instituted a hiring freeze in May 2022 and laid off 30% of its recruitment staff in July.
Financially, Twitter posted a net loss of $1.136 billion in 2020 and $221 million in 2021Opens a new window . The company’s revenue for Q2 2022 earnings declined 1% year-over-year to $1.18 billion, missing industry expectations by 11%. Twitter registered a net loss of $270 millionOpens a new window in the same quarter, higher than all four quarters combined in 2021. The only time Twitter made a yearly net profit was in 2018 ($1.18 billionOpens a new window ) and 2019 ($1.46 billionOpens a new window ).
Had Musk abandoned the acquisition, the $1 billion termination feeOpens a new window would have proven minuscule compared to the problems at Twitter. Twitter, whose stock trading is expected to be suspended today from the NYSE, hit a 52-week low of $31.3 in July 2022, right around the time Musk expressed apprehension about completing the deal because of the prevalence of a higher number of bots/fake accounts.
See More: Twitter Confirms Vulnerability That Allowed Hacker to Collect Account Data of Millions
The two biggest spikes on Twitter’s NYSE index are also indicative of this: the market sentiment concerning Musk acquiring Twitter is generally positive, given two of the biggest spikes in its share price came after Musk announced plans to buy Twitter in April 2022 and later at the start of October 2022 when he confirmed he is proceeding with his original $54.20 per share offer.
During a town hall at Twitter in July, Musk expressed: “The company does need to get healthy.â€
The billionaire has floated several ideas, including a subscription model on the social networking platform and reportedly layoffs of 75% of Twitter’s ~7,500 staff. According to Bloomberg, Musk refuted the latter. However, a return to office mandate could be on the cards, according to a text exchange between Musk and angel investor, entrepreneur, and friend Jason Calacanis unearthedOpens a new window by The New York Times’ Kate Conger.
What is certain so far is that Agrawal (who replaced Jack Dorsey as CEO in November 2021), CFO Ned Segal, head of legal policy, trust and safety Vijaya Gadde; chief customer officer Sarah Personette, and general counsel Sean Edgett, among others, have all reportedlyOpens a new window lost their jobs.
Agrawal’s reign at Twitter also saw upheavals, including the exit of chief design officer Dantley Davis, head of engineering Michael Montano, head of security Peiter “Mudge†Zatko, CISO Rinki Sethi, revenue product lead Bruce Falck and GM and head of consumer product Kayvon Beykpour.
In August 2022, Zatko turned whistleblower and outed the company’s alleged “extreme deficiencies†in security, not to mention the obscure way in which the company measures the actual number of bots/fake/spam accounts on the platform, the primary point of contention between Musk and Twitter’s legal dispute, which has technically ended considering Musk closed the acquisition before the court-ordered deadline of October 28, 2022.
Besides Agrawal, Musk has also criticized Gadde and her team’s decision to ban former U.S. President Donald Trump from Twitter. Musk has suggested reinstating Trump’s Twitter account.
On the eve of the completion of Twitter’s acquisition, Musk penned an open letter to advertisers on Twitter, who contributed 91.52% of Twitter’s Q2 2022 revenueOpens a new window , to assuage concerns.
Advertisers are reportedly planning to boycott Twitter if Trump is reinstated on Twitter. While Musk’s letter to advertisers doesn’t address Trump, it spells out his motivations behind acquiring Twitter (“not to make more moneyâ€) and that opinions beyond the laws of the land won’t go unpunished.Â
Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPASOpens a new window
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022Opens a new window
Free speech within Twitter seems to be Musk’s latest fixation after setting out to replace the internal combustion engine with Tesla, pioneer re-usability of rockets and possibly colonize Mars with SpaceX, reimagine internet connectivity with Starlink, reinvent brain-machine interfacing with Neuralink, and revolutionize urban infrastructure with the Boring Company.
“In the relentless pursuit of clicks, much of traditional media has fueled and catered to those polarized extremes [far right and far left], as they believe that is what brings in the money, but, in doing so, the opportunity for dialogue is lost,†Musk wrote after updating his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit.â€.
“Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!â€
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