Twitter, formerly owned and run by Jack Dorsey, has been purchased by multibillionaire Elon Musk after six months of discourse, resulting in several changes to the social media platform.
But first, let's go back to the beginning.
Elon Musk first invested around $3 billion in Twitter shares over a few months, increasing his stake in the firm to 9.2% and making him Twitter's biggest stakeholder.
The Twitter board, a collection of directors and significant shareholders, awarded him a place on the board so he could assist them in making choices regarding the firm. However, much to their surprise, Musk turned down their offer.
Three days later, on April 14, 2022, Elon Musk made an unsolicited offer to purchase Twitter for $44 billion.
Many Twitter users were perplexed as to why Musk wanted to buy the company, citing his greed and power hungriness as possible reasons for his purchase. To this, Musk stressed that he did not buy the company "to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love."
Musk's offer was initially rejected by the Twitter board, who then used a "poison pill" strategy to discourage him from acquiring shares and gaining more power within the firm.
To avert the aggressive takeover Elon Musk had been displaying with his quick acquisition of business shares, they lowered the price of their shares to other owners to encourage more competition.
Elon Musk nevertheless made an offer to purchase shares for $54.20 per. A deal was made for Musk to acquire Twitter control following months of negotiations and covert acquisitions of Twitter shares. Elon Musk, though, frequently criticized Twitter in public tweets and constantly threatened to pull out of the deal.
Musk eventually asked to pull out of the agreement for him to buy Twitter for $44 billion citing that he had not been given enough information about the bots and spam regarding Twitter.
Due to this, Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk, saying that he was breaking the terms of the contract and lacked any proof of misinformation or ignorance on the bots and spam estimates.
Twitter also claimed that Musk was attempting to break the agreement because it was no longer advantageous for him given the falling value of Twitter's stock and the overall value of the company falling far below Musk's $44 Billion offer. The case's presiding judge made a decision in favor of Twitter. Musk re-offered to purchase the business at his initial price to avoid further court disputes.
Elon Musk successfully acquired Twitter's ownership on October 27, 2022, and the business was subsequently converted from a public to a privately owned company.
His initial action was to fire some of Twitter's top executives and the company's previous owner before reactivating former president Donald Trump's Twitter account (to which he declined). The CEO, Parag Agrawal, the CFO, and the director of legal policy, trust, and safety, Vijaya Gadde, were all fired. The business' general counsel, Sean Edgett, was also let go.
In an email to Twitter employees, he demanded they either accept a new "hardcore" working environment and "work long hours at high intensity" or leave the company with three months' severance.
As a result, at least 2,100 full-time workers quit the company, and around half of Twitter's 7,500 employees lost their jobs, forcing the closure of several offices.
Elon Musk made several modifications to the site itself, such as reducing moderation, which entails reducing the trust and safety team within Twitter that seeks to reduce hate speech, bullying, and other issues, as well as introducing the monetization of the blue check mark. The blue check mark itself aims to decrease impersonations and fraud by verifying the authenticity of Twitter users.
Several problems arose when the blue checkmark was made monetizable for $8 per month. For instance, anyone with money might create fake accounts for individuals and companies to make 'official' statements.
Following several impersonation incidents, such as an account impersonating one of the largest insulin distributers Eli Lilly that insulin was now free resulting in the company having to issue a statement disproving and apologizing for the false information, Elon Musk promptly ended the monetization of the checkmark.
Despite the checkmark monetization's failure and problems brought by significant layoffs as well as several celebrities leaving Twitter, Elon Musk asserts that Twitter's traction and growth have been increasing tremendously.
