Just before midnight last Thursday, Elon Musk tweeted “the bird is freed.” The message confirmed once and for all that he’d finally, officially, really, actually purchased Twitter. It marked the end of a long saga during which Musk spent months trying to wriggle out of buying the company, leading to a public feud with Twitter and a multi-billion dollar lawsuit settled only when he agreed to close at his original $US44 ($61) billion offer price. Musk, whose Twitter bio now reads “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator,” set to work.
Almost immediately, chaos ensued.
From revamping the app’s verification program, to firing top executives, to spurring rumours about massive layoffs at the company, Musk has dominated the news cycle over the last week. He generated headlines multiple times a day, drawing widespread criticism, speculation, and lots of celebratory online hate speech from admiring fans. Lest you forget, he’s also simultaneously the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and The Boring Company.
If you’re luckier than I am, you found better things to do than keep up with the news. But it’s been a wild ride. Here are the 10 craziest moments from Elon’s first week at Twitter.
Let That Sink In
On Thursday, October 27th, a grinning Elon Musk marched into Twitter headquarters holding a bathroom sink, mumbling to the camera “you can’t help but let that sink in” and chuckling at his own bizarre pun.
Musk spent the day at the office holding court with employees and executives. He tweeted that he was “Meeting a lot of cool people at Twitter today!”
I love that no amount of money will ever give this man the one thing he wants – being funny https://t.co/WN1SoNtqDw
— Mohanad Elshieky (@MohanadElshieky) October 27, 2022
Rumours that were swirling at the time that Musk planned to cut 75% of Twitter’s staff, which he reportedly denied when asked by an employee.
Technically, this was a day before his official Twitter tenure started with the close of the buyout on Friday. But the sink episode set the tone for what will surely be an bizarre chapter in the company’s history.
Don’t Let the Millions of Dollars Hit You on the Way Out
Heads rolled in Musk’s his first orders of business, as he fired Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, top policy executive Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Edgett.
It marked the end of the short and tumultuous tenure for Agrawal, who served as the company’s CEO for less than a year after founder Jack Dorsey left the company, much of which was dominated by public back-and-forth with Elon. The departure was likely bittersweet, as Agrawal and his fellow fired executives are owed multi-million dollar payouts for their early dismals — though Musk reportedly argued they were fired for cause, which, if it holds up, would mean that they won’t receive their so-called “golden parachute” payments.
Agrawal will be remembered as one of the top three CEOs Twitter ever had.
Your Checkmark Will Now Cost $20
By far Musk’s most controversial move in his first days at Twitter came when he announced Monday that verification on Twitter would transition to a paid service that runs either $US20 ($28) per month. The billionaire reportedly told a team of engineers they had a week to roll out the feature or they would be fired.
Twitter erupted in protest, with many noting that a $US20 ($28) fee for the coveted check mark next to your Twitter bio is far more than even the most expensive streaming services. Turning verification into a pay-to-play set up could also undermine a feature that, at least in theory, is meant to prevent misinformation and harassment on the platform by confirming that notable people are who they say they are.
I got your verification right here pic.twitter.com/WMQDXdyvje
— mr. joshua (@pants) October 31, 2022
“There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye”
On the same Friday Elon took over Twitter, Nancy Pelosi’s husband suffered a violent and disturbing assault from a home intruder, who allegedly broke into the couple’s San Francisco home intent on kidnapping the Democratic leader.
Elon Musk felt the need to weigh in on Sunday, and tweeted a link to an obviously false, homophobic conspiracy theory about the attack from a right-wing fringe website with a history of publishing false stories. “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,” Musk wrote. There is no possibility that is the case. There’s a mountain of evidence to support the official story, and nothing backing up the hateful nonsense Musk promoted to his 100 million followers.
Musk quickly deleted the tweet, a move that pleased no one, including fans of so-called “free speech” who chastised the billionaire for caving to pressure from the “woke mob.” For some, the episode reaffirmed concerns about the future of misinformation and hate speech on the platform under Musk’s obtuse guidance.
Skyrocketing Hate Speech
Speaking of hate speech, Musk is well aware of people’s worries about Twitter descending into a den of iniquity, bigotry, and other vile behaviour. That’s a particular concern for the company’s bottom line, not just because it might cause users to leave, but it could deal a serious blow to advertising revenue as potential clients avoid the platform.
Musk sought to assuage those fears in an open letter to advertisers where he promised Twitter wouldn’t become a “free-for-all hellscape.” (He also said he bought the platform “to help humanity, whom I love,” real words that a real man apparently didn’t recognise as absurd.)
But Elon stans were already hard at work proving that’s obviously not going to be true. Researchers at Montclair State University examined the status of hate speech on the platform, and found an “immediate, visible, and measurable spike” in hate speech in the hours following Musk’s takeover. Many celebrated Musk’s inauguration by just tweeting the N-word over and over.
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, confirmed that conclusion in a tweet saying the company had “been focused on addressing the surge in hateful conduct on Twitter” and removed more than 1500 accounts for violating rules about hate speech over the weekend.
Since Saturday, we’ve been focused on addressing the surge in hateful conduct on Twitter. We’ve made measurable progress, removing more than 1500 accounts and reducing impressions on this content to nearly zero. Here’s the latest on our work, and what’s next.
— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) October 31, 2022
OK Wait What About $8 Instead? Please?
That gets us all the way through the weekend. But Musk was still hard at work, if that’s what you call Tweeting. Among the detractors who took to twitter to complain about the proposed $US20 ($28) price for verification was Steven King. We could paraphrase, but the man is an author, as King put it:
$20 a month to keep my blue check? Fuck that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) October 31, 2022
Musk, whose feelings seemed a little hurt, responded in the comments, bargaining down the price to $US8 ($11) and all but begging twitter users to get on board with his plan:
We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
Elon Musk, master negotiator.
More Ads, More Problems
Over recent weeks, Musk made a dramatic about face on the subject of advertising. The billionaire who once said “I hate advertising” suddenly thinks the whole thing is pretty great now that he stands to make some money from it, tweeting that he actually things that ads “can delight, entertain, and inform you.” Twitter makes 90% of its revenue from ads.
On Monday, Jason Calacanis, an investor and pal who Musk brought on board his new Twitter team, wrote that company reps were in New York meeting with representatives from the ad industry.
We’re having a very productive day meeting with the marketing and advertising community here in New York.
The passion they have for @Twitter is enormous.
So many great ideas on how to increase joy on the platform!
— @jason (@Jason) October 31, 2022
It’s unclear who those members of the marketing and advertising community are. Morning Brew reporter Ryan Barwick tweeted that the leading ad firms, Dentsu, Omnicom, IPG, and GroupM, all said they hadn’t met with Twitter or even heard of any meetings with the company.
Advertisers seem increasingly skittish about working with the Twitter amid concerns about brand safety on a platform that might soon be rife with distasteful content. HBO released a statement that it “will be assessing the platform under its new leadership,” GM stopped advertising on Twitter altogether, and leading ad firm IPG urged its clients to consider pausing Twitter ads.
Is it Too Late to Bring Back Vine?
Just in time for Halloween, Musk tweeted out a poll asking if he should bring Vine back from the dead, drumming up conversation about the popular short-form video app that Twitter purchased and shut down years ago. Since Vine’s shuttering, another app you might have heard of which also centres around short video got some attention, called TikTok. Hindsight is 20-20, but hey maybe it’s not too late! On Thursday, reports surfaced that the idea was more than a poll, and Musk asked employees at company to look into resurrecting Vine.
Ummm, Maybe I Won’t Unban Everyone
Musk calls himself a “free speech absolutist. He famously said banning Donald Trump from Twitter wasn’t just a mistake, it was immoral, and that he would welcome the former president back onto the platform. In fact, Musk said he’s against the idea of permanent bans altogether, and he thinks basically any speech that isn’t illegal should be allowed on the platform.
If he follows through on his word (which is a big “if,” given his track record) that would mean a long list of monsters would make their way back to the land of tweets.
That would make a lot of people on the right happy, but it turns out (like it so often does), that Musk spoke before he thought through the consequences. Now that reality struck and he’s had time to think about whether or not being the home of hate speech would be good for Twitter’s bottom line, Musk doesn’t seem so sure about all that unbanning anymore:
Twitter will not allow anyone who was de-platformed for violating Twitter rules back on platform until we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
Musk also wrote that the people making that call about all the unbanning will include “civil rights community and groups who face hate-fuelled violence” and will likely take several weeks time, much to the chagrin of racism fans who thought they’d finally found their champion.
Actually, Yeah, You’re All Fired
Musk started the week by reassuring Twitter staff that he wasn’t going to fire 75% of the company, despite reports to the contrary. And in true Musk fashion, he rounded out the week with a new rumour that he’ll be laying off 50% of the company instead. Hah! Funny right?
Reports suggest that the billionaire boy wonder will let 3,700 Twitter employees go later today.
And on the sixth day, he did not rest.
On Thursday, his sixth day of owning Twitter, Elon axed a holiday from Twitter’s company calendar: the “Day of Rest.” Twitter had introduced the holiday in 2020 to combat burnout, a concern Musk doesn’t share. Reports from within Twitter say he’s been asking employees to work 85 hour weeks to ship new products as soon as possible, with at least one employee electing to roll out a sleeping bag on the office floor.
Esther Crawford, the employee in the sleeping bag, wrote, “When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork.” Another Twitter employee going by Evan captioned the picture of the silver sleeping bag, “When you need something from your boss at elon twitter.”
When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork https://t.co/UBGKYPilbD
— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) November 2, 2022