Elon Musk's 5 major moves in first week of Twitter ownership
Musk completed his $44B takeover of the social media giant on Oct. 27
The Heritage Foundation's Jake Denton breaks down some of the biggest changes that Elon Musk is implementing at Twitter on 'The Evening Edit.'
Less than a week after officially closing his $44 billion acquisition to take Twitter private at $54.20 per share, Elon Musk has already revealed major changes for the social media platform.
Twitter stock, which was suspended from trading on Oct. 28, is set to delist from the New York Stock Exchange on Nov. 8.
Below is a FOX Business recap of the top five moves the world's richest man has announced or made in his first week as Twitter's new owner.
1. Dissolving Twitter's board
According to an 8-K filing on Thursday, Elon Musk has become the sole director of Twitter after dissolving its board of directors. The board included chairman Bret Taylor, former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, and members Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou.
Musk said in a tweet on Monday that the change is "just temporary."
Individuals helping Musk reshape the company in the interim include Jared Birchall, the head of Musk's family office, his lawyer Alex Spiro, angel investor Jason Calacanis, PayPal's founding chief operating officer and venture capitalist David Sacks, Twitter's head of safety and integrity Yoel Roth and Sriram Krishnan, a former Twitter executive and general partner at venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.
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2. Firing top executives
Following the closing of his acquisition, Musk fired Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's head of legal, policy and trust. General counsel Sean Edgett also confirmed on Twitter that he is no longer with the company after several outlets reported he was included in the firings.
In addition, Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette and Chief People and Diversity Officer Dalana Brand have both resigned.
Twitter employees have been uneasy for months about the possibility of major layoffs at the company under Musk's ownership.
The Washington Post reported last month that Musk was planning to lay off 75% of Twitter's workforce, a move that would reduce its staffing from about 7,500 employees to around 2,000. However, Bloomberg reported that Musk has denied the 75% figure. A separate Post report on Monday suggested that a first round of layoffs will target 25% of Twitter's workforce.
Musk has disputed a "false" New York Times report that Twitter layoffs would take place before Nov. 1 in order to avoid paying out stock grants to employees.
In May, Musk said that Twitter would be "super focused on hardcore software engineering, design, infosec & server hardware" following the completion of his takeover. In response to a user's question on Sunday about what was "most messed up" at Twitter, Musk replied that "there seem to be 10 people ‘managing’ for every one person coding."
3. Bringing in Tesla engineers to review Twitter's code
Bloomberg News reported last week that Twitter's engineers were unable to make changes to the platform's code after Musk brought in a team of engineers from Tesla to review it and explain what the company needs.
According to CNBC, the team consists of more than 50 software engineers. Notable Tesla employees brought over reportedly include:
- Director of software development Ashok Elluswamy
- Director of Autopilot and Tesla Bot engineering Milan Kovic
- Software engineering senior director Maha Virduhagiri
- Senior staff technical program manager Pete Scheutzow
- Senior manager of security intelligence Jake Nocon
Additionally, two employees from Musk's tunneling firm The Boring Company and one from his neurotechnology firm Neuralink have reportedly been authorized to work at Twitter.
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4. Launching content moderation council and revamping Twitter verification
Musk has announced plans to form a content moderation council with "widely divergent views." The group will include representatives from the civil rights community and groups who face hate-fueled violence.
"Twitter will not allow anyone who was de-platformed for violating Twitter rules back on platform until we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks," he tweeted Wednesday.
He also disclosed new details on Tuesday for his plans to revamp Twitter's user verification process. Twitter Blue subscribers in the United States will receive a blue checkmark on their profiles for $8 per month. Musk added that pricing will be "adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity."
In addition to the blue checkmark, Twitter Blue will offer users priority in replies, mentions and search, the ability to post long videos and audio, half as many ads, and a "paywall bypass" for publishers willing to work with the company.
The move will give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators and help the company in its effort to crack down on spam and fake accounts.
"If a paid Blue account engages in spam/scam, that account will be suspended," Musk warned. "Essentially, this raises the cost of crime on Twitter by several orders of magnitude."
5. Vine revival?
On Sunday, Musk put out a poll to his followers asking if they want the short-form video platform Vine to make a return. Out of the more than 4.9 million users that voted, over 69% were in favor of the move, compared to roughly 30% who voted against it.
Sources told Axios that a possible Vine reboot could be ready as early as the end of the year.