Musk Buys Twitter
Deal Closes After Much Turmoil
The US$44bn deal closed late last night heralded by a tweet from Elon Musk, “the bird is freed”.
the bird is freed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
He immediately fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, CPO Vijaya Gadde and CCO Sarah Personette amid handsome severance.1 Earlier reports cite a plan to also cut 75% of Twitter’s 7,500 staff as well. However, those reports are deemed to be inaccurate now2, although middle management and dead-end projects are still rumoured to be at risk of being cut.
Lots of Speculation
Speculation still runs wild as to what will actually become of Twitter from the “nothing will really change” camp through to it being full monetized (pay to tweet) or absorbed into Musk’s dream app called “X” which is similar to China’s “We Chat” and is an everything app from chatting to finance and more. Multiple attempts before for an all-in app outside of China have all failed.
Reduced moderation?
Whatever form it ultimately takes, it is a safe bet that content moderation will likely become much more lenient. Since the first offers to purchase in April, Musk has declared his desire for an open “free speech” platform. However, he also took steps late Thursday to calm the nerves of advertisers that it will not become a “free-for-all hellscape“3 despite reduced moderation.
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