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Twitter’s always been a bit chaotic, but its new owner and CEO, Elon Musk, is taking that to a whole new level. He’s been making dramatic changes since he bought the company for $44 billion on Oct. 27, including laying off half the staff while changing moderation policies and unbanning extremist accounts while figuring out who will be verified.
Twitter’s saga with Musk, who also runs automaker Tesla and aerospace company SpaceX, was chaotic even before he took control. He signed a deal in April to acquire the company but then tried to back out of it, leading Twitter to sue him. After months of pretrial skirmishes, Musk closed the acquisition just before a court-ordered deadline.
After laying off half the staff and most contractors, he gave remaining employees an ultimatum last week to pledge to work under his new intense culture or get out. Many, it seems, decided to leave. A smaller number were fired just before Thanksgiving. The evacuation of Twitter by thousands of its workers has spurred worries of outages, hacks and disruptions.
Here’s the most recent news about Musk’s takeover of Twitter:Nov 25: Color-coded ‘verified’ check marks coming Dec. 2
Just after midnight Friday, Musk tweeted his newest concept for verification, which is set to go live on Dec. 2. Check mark badges will come in three colors: gold for companies, gray for governments and blue for individuals « celebrity or not. » Musk is lumping both noted individuals and Twitter Blue subscribers together in the blue check bucket, though individuals can also have a smaller secondary logo showing « they belong to an org if verified as such by that org, » Musk explained in a follow-up tweet.
Musk has been fiddling with verified check marks since he took over. He first tried an $8-per-month Twitter Blue subscription that blurred the line between authenticated individuals and paid accounts, leading to a slew of people impersonating celebrities and corporations that caused mayhem. Then Twitter added gray check marks for « official » accounts of governments, media outlets, business partners and « some public figures, » but then removed the checks as the company dithered on who would get the « official » label.
The new three-color scheme seems designed to reduce impersonations while preserving subscriber revenue.
Musk also noted that « all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates, » though it’s unclear whether this will be done entirely by Twitter or if users will be involved in authenticating their identity. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment. Musk noted that a longer explanation will be coming next week.
Later in the day Musk, floated the the possibility of creating his own smartphone if Apple and Google decide to boot Twitter from their respective platforms. « I certainly hope it does not come to that, but, yes, if there is no other choice, I will make an alternative phone, » he tweeted in a response to a question about the scenario.
Musk offered few other details, but the creation of not just a smartphone, but a rival mobile platform that gets around the Apple App Store and Google Play Store is incredibly difficult, requiring a combination of custom hardware and software.
Considering how stitched Elon is between Twitter, SpaceX and Tesla, getting into the phone business might not be the best idea. Nov. 24: Musk announces ‘amnesty,’ also fires engineers before Thanksgiving
After tweeting a non-scientific poll a day earlier, Musk announced the results on Thursday. More than 72% of 3.16 million respondents voted « yes » to the question: « Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam? »
« The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei, » he tweeted Thursday, referencing a Latin phrase that translates as « voice of the people, voice of God. »
Separately, Musk may be in the running for this year’s Ebenezer Scrooge award after reportedly firing roughly 50 engineers right before Thanksgiving, according to tech newsletter Platformer. The newsletter was corroborating a report from The Verge that some Twitter engineers received emails on Wednesday saying they’d been fired because their « code is not satisfactory. » Twitter engineers had earlier been told to send code samples to Musk. His « hardcore » approach to work is widely known within Silicon Valley, including at his other companies where he’s demanded « minimum » 40-hour workweeks from staff.
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that Twitter disbanded its office in Brussels, Belgium, after leaders there exited the company. The FT said two of the executives had led Twitter’s efforts to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, which sets rules around content moderation, among other things. Others reportedly managed the company’s relationship with European regulators.
Twitter didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.Nov. 23: Musk could reinstate more suspended accounts
Musk floated the idea of offering « a general amnesty to suspended accounts » as long as they haven’t broken the law or engaged in « egregious spam. »
In a tweet, Musk polled users about the idea. It’s unclear how many accounts this potential change would cover, but some users have raised concerns that doing so would result in more hate speech and other harmful content spreading on the platform.
Musk has been bringing back accounts that Twitter suspended for violating its rules against hateful conduct, COVID misinformation and glorification of violence. He reinstated former US President Donald Trump’s account after polling users about the idea. Twitter suspended Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots because the platform feared his tweets could incite more violence. Nov. 22: Musk taps iPhone hacker for help
George Hotz, a hacker known for being the first person to jailbreak an iPhone in 2007 and founding autonomous driving startup Comma.ai, accepted a 12-week « internship » at Twitter to help improve the social media network’s search functions. Hotz and Musk have had a complicated relationship. Hotz has claimed he turned down a job to work at Tesla, while Musk has dismissed the notion that Hotz and Comma.ai could create a better autonomous driving system than Tesla’s Autopilot.
Meanwhile, Twitter is undergoing a cost-cutting campaign that The New York Times reports includes refusing to pay vendors for outstanding bills. The cost cuts are targeting infrastructure, travel expenses, software services and real estates, the Times reports, citing multiple unnamed sources.
At the same time, The and industry watchers Pathmatics and Media Matters For America reported that as many as half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers have either announced or seemingly stopped spending on the platform. Nov. 21: Even more account bans lift, Musk holds off on paid verification relaunch
Still more once-suspended accounts continued have their bans lifted. On Nov. 21, US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal Twitter account was unlocked, 10 months after being permanently suspended for violating Twitter’s COVID misinformation policy. But amid the parade of restored accounts, Musk claimed one ban will remain in place: Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Later in the day, Musk tweeted that Twitter is « holding off » the relaunch of paid verification through its Twitter Blue subscription service until « there is high confidence of stopping impersonation. » Twitter paused the new verification system earlier in November after users who purchased the verified blue check marks posed as major brands, politicians, athletes and other celebrities. Twitter was expected to relaunch paid verification on Nov. 29. Musk tweeted that the company will probably use a different color check mark for organizations versus individuals. Nov. 20: More suspended accounts revived, World Cup begins
After Musk reversed former US President Donald Trump’s permanent ban, more suspended accounts came back online, including that of Kanye West. Known as Ye after changing his name last year, West tweeted Sunday to his 32 million followers for the first time in two weeks, after he had been locked out for an antisemitic threat.
Project Veritas, a conservative activist group known for hidden-camera videos, was also reinstated, after being suspended last year for disclosing people’s personal information, a charge it denied.
Separately, the FIFA World Cup kicked off. The event typically spurs spikes in Twitter usage, as people around the world converge to revel in real-time updates and posts related to its matches. In the flood of usage, worries persisted that Twitter might be tripped up by outages and disruptions as it copes with operating with a fraction of its usual staff. But the first day of the tournament seemed to proceed without Twitter experiencing any major incidents.Nov. 19: Musk lets Trump back on Twitter
Elon Musk’s long-expected reversal of Trump’s permanent ban from Twitter came Saturday, opening the door for the controversial politician to regain his social media megaphone.
Musk had polled users on Twitter about whether Trump should be allowed back onto the platform. The final results of that poll showed 51.8% in favor of reinstating Trump and 48.2% against.
« The people have spoken, » Musk tweeted. « Trump will be reinstated. » An account with the familiar name @realDonaldTrump showed up on the site Saturday. Twitter, like other social networks, had booted Trump after the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots.
Separately, Bloomberg reported that Musk is considering firing more employees on the sales and partnership side. He reportedly asked leaders, including Robin Wheeler, the head of sales and marketing, to fire more employees. Wheeler refused and lost her job (she lists herself as an ex-Twitter sales exec on her profile).
Twitter, which has laid off its communications department, didn’t respond to a question sent to its its press email.Nov. 18: Musk asks engineers to come to the office. Previously banned accounts get reinstated
Twitter employees were locked out of the company’s headquarters, but Musk reportedly sent an email asking for some software engineers to head back into the office, according to Bloomberg. Musk asked the coders to meet with him and provide examples of their coding work in order to help him better understand the software.
Musk tweeted about the company’s policy on speech saying certain tweets will not have « freedom of reach. »
« Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter, » he said. « You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of internet. »
Musk followed that tweet with another saying conservative media personality Jordan Peterson, right-wing satire site The Babylon Bee and comedian Kathy Griffin will have their banned accounts reinstated. Twitter booted Peterson and The Babylon Bee from the platform earlier in the year over anti-trans tweets while Griffin had her account suspended last week for changing it into a Musk parody account.
Musk also tweeted that Twitter hasn’t made a decision regarding former President Donald Trump’s account, but Yoel Roth, the former head of trust and safety at Twitter, said in a New York Times opinion piece published Nov. 18 that the ex-president’s reinstatement was « near certainty. » Twitter banned Trump from its platform in 2021 because of concerns his remarks could spark more violence after the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot.
Roth, who resigned from the company, wrote how Musk called for more censoring of tweets after a surge of hate speech showed up on the platform following his takeover. He also went on to explain the need for content moderation was not only important to keep advertisers happy, but it also was needed to appease app store owners and government entities, such as the European Union, that have laws against hate speech.
