A year full of confusion and change. How Twitter changed before and after Musk – News

American-Canadian entrepreneur of South African origin Elon Musk (51) is considered a technological visionary. He participated in the creation of the Internet payment system PayPal, and in 2002 he founded the successful company SpaceX for the development of space rockets from the money for its sale.

Musk is currently the richest man in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. According to Forbes magazine, which uses a different methodology, Musk is second only to French businessman Bernard Arnault, co-owner of the LVMH group. In addition, Musk also changed the world of the automotive industry with his Tesla electric cars. At the end of last October, he became the head of Twitter, which runs the social network of the same name.

Musk, whose net worth is now estimated at $187 billion according to Bloomberg, staged a spectacular fall in the second half of last year, even making it to the Guinness Book of Records when he broke the world record for “the largest loss of personal wealth in history”. According to various sources, Musk’s fortune fell by $165 billion to $200 billion last year. The main cause of the fall in Musk’s assets is the drop in shares of the car company Tesla, which lost roughly two-thirds of their value last year.

Musk, who has been a frequent user of Twitter since 2009, became Twitter’s largest shareholder in early April last year when he announced that he had a 9.2 percent stake in the company. Shortly thereafter, he announced that he intends to buy Twitter, saying that the company has extraordinary potential, which he will fully develop.

In a notice to the US regulator, Musk also said he plans to delist the company. Twitter said it would consider his offer. On April 25, Musk then agreed with Twitter to buy the internet company for $44 billion (roughly a trillion CZK). The company said its board of directors unanimously approved the transaction.

In mid-May, Musk said on his Twitter account that the company’s takeover plan was on hold. Musk first wanted details on the proportion of fake and spam accounts, making sure they were less than five percent of all accounts. But Musk later wrote in another tweet that he is still interested in taking over Twitter.

In June, Musk warned he might back out of a deal to take over Twitter. His attorney said Twitter refuses requests for information about fake and spam accounts on its network. He added that such a course of action is a violation of the terms of the agreement and that Musk reserves the right to cancel it.

In July, Musk terminated the deal to buy Twitter. In response, he stated that he would fight with Musk in court to fulfill the takeover agreement. We insist on the agreed price and terms, said the chairman of the company’s board of directors. A few days later, Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk.

In September, Twitter shareholders approved Musk’s takeover of the company for $44 billion. Musk then suggested in early October that he would buy Twitter for the originally agreed price of $54.20 per share, valuing the entire business at the originally agreed upon price. Shares of Twitter rallied after the news and trading was halted. The court subsequently ordered him to agree with the Twitter company by October 28 whether he would take it over or not.

Musk took control of Twitter on October 28 and fired executives including CEO Parag Agrawal. “The bird is freed,” Musk wrote on his Twitter account that day, referring to the social network’s logo.

Musk, who became Twitter’s sole director, urged the company’s employees to either join in the commitment to work hard or leave. Because of this ultimatum, hundreds of employees started leaving the company. Twitter has been undergoing changes since Musk took over and has faced criticism for, among other things, removing accounts that were set up to promote rival networks or blocking the accounts of prominent journalists.

In December, Musk let Twitter users vote on whether he should remain at the helm of the company. At the time, 57.5 percent of the more than 17 million voters voted for the billionaire’s departure from Twitter. Musk subsequently stated that he would step down as CEO of the company once he found someone crazy enough to take the job.

“I’m guessing probably the end of this year would be a good time to find someone else to run the company because I think it should be in a stable position around, you know, the end of this year,” Musk said at a summit in February Dubai.

Twitter’s value has fallen by more than 50 percent to $20 billion since Musk’s takeover, according to its boss. When Musk bought Twitter in the fall, the company employed nearly 8,000 people. Their number has been reduced to 1,500, Musk said on April 12 in an interview with the BBC.

According to him, the last few months have been very stressful, but buying the company was the right move. Musk also said that the majority of advertisers have returned to the social network, so it is now breaking even in terms of revenue and expenses.

Twitter has now ceased to exist independently, having merged with Musk’s newly formed X Corp., according to Bloomberg. It’s unclear what this change means for Twitter. The billionaire owner has hinted in the past that the Twitter purchase was to be an “accelerator” for the creation of App X – which he called “the app of everything”.

Apparently, because of the Bloomberg report, the BBC editor asked the head of Twitter whether he would sell the social network for the same amount he bought it for – that is, for $44 billion (946.4 billion crowns). Musk replied that he would only sell it if “the buyer is as committed to the truth as he is.”

Canadian radio and television company Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Swedish public radio Sveriges Radio (SR) and American radio network NPR have suspended their presence on Twitter in recent days. The companies thus objected to being labeled “government-funded media” by Twitter, a designation Twitter has until now used for state media such as Russia’s Sputnik website or the Chinese Communist Party’s daily newspaper.