Musk and Twitter — A Curious Engagement

World’s richest person Elon Musk has finally bought Twitter. This will lead to a new era in one of the most controversial social media platforms, Twitter. And to no surprise, even its buying spurred up many problems. Even after it was bought, its new owner’s decisions have stirred up mixed emotions worldwide. Let’s look at the event and try to understand things in depth.

Controversial Purchase

Twitter is bought at a whopping $44 billion amount. This offer was made by Elon Musk in April and was accepted by the then twitter board of directors unanimously.

However, Musk tried to cancel the deal in July, giving the reason of Twitter not removing spambot accounts. Twitter owners then filed a case against Musk for bad conduct in the agreement, after which Musk again accepted the offer to buy Twitter. Finally, on 27 October, Twitter officially transferred to Elon Musk, and he began transforming it at his own will and aim.

Workforce changes

As soon as he became owner, he started to reduce the workforce of twitter which he had already stated before only. He also fired Twitter CEO, Parag Agrawal. He will be reducing the workforce by more than half. This will lead to more strain on the ongoing recession in the US. Many people will get unemployed after this putting more stress on the economy for sure.

Moreover, a basic question of workers’ rights comes into question as well. Although twitter would be fulfilling all the legalities payments and notices for employees being fired, it raises a question on private centralized entities to remove their employees all of a sudden. It is surely a thing to be thought of.

$8 for Blue Tick

One of the most surprising changes that Elon bought was monetizing the verified official accounts on Twitter. There are around 400k blue tick accounts on Twitter. He will be charging $8 monthly to people who want this badge. This will lead to significant changes in the Twitter community. It is somewhat like a subscription model as people will get additional benefits like half ads, etc.

Reasons

Twitter had been on a loss for quite a time. Twitter has been losing around $4 million/day, as said by Elon himself. Adding to it, he even took a loan of about $13 billion to buy Twitter. Elon has to recover these losses one way or other. He has reduced the workforce and charged $8 to get some money to overcome losses. However, earnings from these means are just a small part of the solution Elon would be searching for to redeem twitter to its best.

Conclusions

Elon bought Twitter with the aim of promoting Free speech and the so-called “freeing the bird.” He has now created a “content moderation council” to enhance its content. All these steps taken by Musk, including $8 fees, Workforce reduction, etc., have left people, even Musk fans, uncertain of his intentions. All we can do is just see Musk taking his decisions and entertaining us with his cheeky tweets. I wholeheartedly wish that Musk brings the same revolution in this field as well, as he has bought through his SpaceX and Tesla in those areas. However, recent developments have bamboozled me, as would have you. The outcomes of these steps will be evident in the future, and we shall wait for them.

Shashank Trivedi is the writer of this article. Views expressed and information provided belong solely to the author.