Is Elon Musk Breaking Twitter?

“Will Elon Musk be the death of Twitter?” is one of the most often questioned topics since the billionaire bought the popular social media platform. On April 4, 2022, the acquisition of the social media giant commenced. Elon Musk purchased the company for $44 billion on October 27, 2022. However, days after the acquisition was completed, many concerns were raised regarding Twitter’s future.

Read this article and learn more about how Elon Musk is running Twitter and decide for yourself whether he is jeopardizing the company’s future.

The Initial Concerns 

Elon Musk began imposing his principles and making significant changes in the company’s administration within days of purchasing Twitter. First, the multimillionaire fired some of the most important personnel, including CEO Parag Agrawal, counsel Vijaya Gadde, and CFO Ned Segal.

Musk then chose to terminate a large percentage of the workforce on November 4, 2022. The startling thing was how he did it – by email. The majority of these people worked in Twitter’s advertising department and were in charge of public relations.

The customers and the general public naturally raised questions about the ethical justification of these moves. Many of those employees have been working for years at Twitter and were key players in developing and implementing the company’s strategy.

For instance, the top counsel Vijaya Gadde was the person responsible for banning ex-president Trump from Twitter after the January 6 riots. Moreover, many fired employees were working on hate-speech and misinformation algorithms incorporated into the platform. 

Furthermore, Elon has been criticized for being an eccentric and unconvincing businessman when it comes to acquisitions and predictions. The public already knows him for his forecasts about cryptocurrencies and Tesla’s profitability, therefore it has lost faith in him. All of this, combined with other dubious beliefs and “vision,” has resulted in a drop in the company’s traffic since he purchased it.

Prior to Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the company’s numbers were fast expanding, with a 56% rise in traffic from July to October 2022. On the other hand, on November 7, the company experienced a 68% decline in traffic.

Other Concerns About Twitter’s Future

Elon Musk didn’t stop there. Even though the traffic decreased, he kept pushing forward and focused on Twitter’s subscriptions. He thought that this was the best way to revive the company’s finances and imposed an $8 monthly fee that would enable users to unlock some premium features and get a verified account. 

This move was unprecedented in Twitter’s history and, unsurprisingly, drove even more users away from the platform.

The next blow came when Musk changed the rules for the contractor companies and the top advertisers. He managed to drive away some key advertisers like Audi, General Motors, Mondelez International, Pfizer, and Volkswagen. Moreover, some online casinos and gaming institutions have also pulled out of Twitter’s advertising portfolio. 

Another concern is the increase in hate speech and misinformation. Beforehand, the platform prohibited hate speech and misinformation and imposed a set of algorithms to prevent this. However, since Musk took over Twitter, the number of slurs against Afro-Americans jumped from 1,282 to 3,876 times per day.

Hate speech against the LGBT community, on the other hand, increased from 2,506 to 3,964 tweets each day. The Center for Countering Digital Hate released this information, pointing out that the new owner is mismanaging the platform’s algorithms. The frightening thing is that, with the new unbanned zones, radicals are back on Twitter, and their numbers are growing.

Although Musk has stated that Twitter will be the meeting place where topics essential to humankind will be argued, the public remains skeptical.

Final Words 

At the start of 2022, Twitter was the most popular method for expressing thoughts and engaging in productive conversations. Businesses promoted themselves on Twitter, and the Twitter community flourished. This has changed since Musk’s acquisition.

Despite the fact that the overall monetizable audience has reached approximately 238 million users, the most active users, who generate the most cash, are continuously departing the platform. Furthermore, hate speech and misinformation are on the rise, and the general population is losing interest in using the platform.

Despite this, Musk consistently ensures that Twitter will flourish once again. His support for a “hard-core Twitter” and a “no free-for-all hellscape” is outrageous. But whether this is true and the platform can get back on track remains to be seen.