Since lastly taking on Twitter on the finish of October, months after intermittent negotiations with the social media board, at the moment, the second-richest man on the planet Elon Musk managed to make numerous “questionable” modifications that gave rise to issues over the way forward for one of the crucial standard platforms.
From firing half of the workers and calling the remainder of them “to opt for hardcore or leave” to restoring ex-President Donald Trump’s account and quickly suspending accounts of dozens of outstanding journalists, Musk did “quite a lot” in round two months as Twitter’s proprietor and CEO.
Just just lately, on Dec. 19 he began a ballot saying he would step down from his place if customers determine so however remained, tweeting afterward that, “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!”
Musk, a really attentive Twitter person himself, who typically elaborated on political points by his account, initiated the strategy by really criticizing Twitter’s stance on free speech and hinted at launching his personal platform.
However, initially of April, the South African-born billionaire acquired almost 73.5 million Twitter shares – a 9.2% stake within the firm on the time, and thus started his “Twitter journey’’ formally.
Let’s take an in depth take a look at the timeline of Musk’s journey to the long-lasting Twitter headquarters and every little thing that has occurred since.
Here is our Twitter yr abstract:
Goodbye Tesla shares, hi there Twitter shares
April 29 – Musk sells roughly $8.5 billion price of shares in Tesla to assist fund the acquisition of Twitter, with share costs starting from $822.68 to $999.13 a share.
Proposed acquisition awaiting
May 13 – Elon Musk says his $44 billion Twitter deal was “temporarily on hold” as he tries to pinpoint the precise variety of spam and faux accounts on the social media platform, one other twist amid indicators of inner turmoil over the proposed acquisition.
‘Minimum bots or no deal!’
May 17 – The Tesla CEO tells the Twitter board: Prove spam accounts lower than 5% or no deal.
Musk on the similar time pledged modifications to Twitter’s content material moderation practices, railing in opposition to selections just like the ban on former U.S. President Donald Trump as overly aggressive whereas searching for to crack down on “spam bots.”
Deal?
June 6 – Musk as soon as once more warned Twitter by way of letter that he could stroll away from the acquisition deal if the social media networking website fails to offer information on spam and faux accounts
Twitter says ‘Yes’
June 21 – The board of Twitter unanimously really useful that shareholders approve the proposed $44 billion sale of the corporate to multibillionaire Elon Musk, based on a regulatory submitting.
But Musk says ‘No’
July 9 – Shares of Twitter fell 6% in prolonged buying and selling as Musk requires termination of the deal since Twitter didn’t present him with the requested user-related information.
In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk mentioned Twitter has “not complied with its contractual obligations” surrounding the deal, specifically giving Musk sufficient info to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform.”
Legal showdown
July 13 – Twitter sues Musk to power him to finish the $44 billion deal. The social media firm accused electrical carmaker Tesla’s CEO of “outlandish” and “bad faith” actions which have precipitated the platform irreparable hurt and “wreaked havoc” on its inventory worth.
Deal attainable?
Aug. 6 – Musk steps again on signing the settlement with Twitter, as soon as once more reinstating his situation for acquiring some particulars about the way it measures whether or not person accounts are “spam bots” or actual individuals.
Oct. 4 – Musk proposes transferring forward with the unique Twitter deal after he was making an attempt for months to again out from the sale that received accepted in April.
Enter Elon
Oct. 28 – Musk buys Twitter in late October for $44 billion after months of on-off negotiations.
“Let the good times roll,” he tweets after the deal is sealed, whereas he turns into the only director of the corporate after dissolving its company board.
‘Blue Tick’
Nov. 1 – The new Twitter head declares the location will cost $8 monthly to confirm the accounts of celebrities and corporations, thus bringing a change to a service that was once free. But the Nov. 6 launch of the Twitter Blue subscription plan goes awry. Musk is pressured to droop the transfer after an embarrassing rash of pretend accounts alarmed advertisers.
Advertisers step again
Nov. 3 – Top world firms, together with General Mills and Volkswagen, droop their promoting on Twitter as they monitor the brand new route the corporate will take.
Massive layoffs
Nov. 4 – Half of Twitter’s 7,500-strong workers are made redundant, sending shock waves by Silicon Valley. Musk tweets that “unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.”
‘Regulator’s ‘concern’
Nov. 10 – The chaos precipitated within the first weeks after Musk’s takeover attracts a uncommon warning from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the U.S. authority that oversees shopper security.
“We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” an FTC spokesperson mentioned.
Nov. 11 – Twitter is going through a surge within the variety of faux accounts throughout the platform regardless of CEO Elon Musk’s claims that the brand new subscription service would defeat the bots and trolls.
Ultimatum to workers
Nov. 16 – Musk delivers an ultimatum to Twitter workers asking them to decide on between being “extremely hardcore” and dealing lengthy hours or dropping their jobs. He provides them a day to determine. Large numbers of the workers select to stop.
Trump reinstated
Nov. 20 – Musk reinstates the account of banned former President Donald Trump after conducting a ballot of customers, a slender majority of whom supported the transfer. A number of days later he declares an “amnesty” for all banned Twitter accounts.
Kanye suspended
Dec. 2 – Musk revises his guarantees of unfettered free speech after rapper Kanye West tweets an image that seems to point out a swastika interlaced with a Star of David. His account is suspended for “incitement to violence.”
Twitter Blue takes two
In mid-December Musk relaunches Twitter Blue. This time, Twitter conducts a assessment of the account earlier than giving it the coveted blue test mark.
Journalists suspended, then reinstated
Dec. 15 – Twitter suspends the accounts of greater than a half-dozen journalists, together with reporters from CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Musk accuses them of endangering his household by their reporting on Twitter’s shutdown of an account that tracked flights of his non-public jet. The EU additionally threatened to sanction the corporate. Two days later a few of the journalists’ accounts have been reopened.
Musk to step down
Dec. 19 – Twitter customers vote by 57.5% to oust Musk as CEO in a ballot he organized and guarantees to honor. A day later he says he’ll resign “as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job.”
‘Twitter Files’
Dec. 25 – The “Twitter Files” are launched as a set of inner Twitter Inc. paperwork similar to screenshots, emails and chat logs that have been supplied by CEO Elon Musk to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and others to current them to the general public.
Dec. 27 – Musk says Twitter will not go bankrupt anytime quickly, as ”it appears to be heading in a very good route,” he famous.
First Twitter Outage
Dec. 28 – As one of many newest developments amongst points relating to the corporate’s operations, Twitter Inc. skilled a major outage that prevented tens of hundreds of customers on completely different continents from accessing or utilizing the platform’s key options for a number of hours.
