Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and SpaceX and one of the world’s richest people, announced on April 14 that he wanted to buy the social media site Twitter.
Musk’s primary intentions for the purchase of the company, he said, include an overall push for greater free speech.
Musk, however, tried to back out of the deal and was taken to court. After months of uncertainty and behind-the-scenes negotiation, Musk purchased the company on Oct. 27 for $44 billion.
He immediately started to make changes.
He’s taken Twitter private and fired the former CEO, Parag Agrawal, along with multiple other top executives, and about half of the entire company’s workforce.
Furthermore, many employees resigned after Musk had issued an ultimatum that they must follow an “extremely hardcore” work ethic that includes long, intense work hours. He’s also threatened to end the com- pany’s work from home policy to force more people back in the office.
Before Musk’s acquisition, Twitter had approximately 7,500 employees. Now it’s down to a little over 3,000 employees, prompting concerns among the public about how long the app can remain viable.
There’s been lots of debate and conversation (much of it on Twitter) over the terminations and changes within the social media giant.
In addition to the controversial job cuts, Musk has also reinstated a number of previously-banned accounts, including that of former President Donald Trump.
All the criticism has certainly created buzz around Musk’s new plans for “Twitter 2.0,” but Musk’s plans were for purpose.
“Twitter will be much more engineering-driven,” he said. “At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so l think this makes sense.”
With recent comments from Musk about the future of the social media giant, Twitter will soon make half of its profits from subscriptions, like the new “Twitter Blue” subscription ($7.99 / month).
With Musk now in control of Twitter, we can expect to see many more news stories and changes in the coming months.
