Twitstorm timeline: The latest on Elon Musk’s Twitter 2.0

Ever since Elon Musk took over as CEO of Twitter, there’s been a lot of changes on the platform. Some people love it, while others are not so sure. As far as brands are concerned, many have left the platform or temporarily paused ads due to increased hate speech, safety concerns, and Musk’s overall lax approach to content moderation, account suspensions, and other issues.

Here’s a rundown of all the changes that have happened so far. Whether you’re a fan or not, it’s worth keeping up with what’s happening.

The latest in the Twitstorm:

• Twitter Offers Advertisers Generous Incentives After Many Marketers Left Platform (Wall Street Journal). “Under the new Twitter plan, advertisers who book at least $500,000 in incremental spending will qualify to have their spending matched with a “100% value add,” up to a $1 million cap.”
• Twitter Says That its Moderation Policies Have Not Changed in Light of Musk Takeover (Social Media Today). Musk is quoted saying “None of our policies have changed. Our approach to policy enforcement will rely more heavily on de-amplification of violative content: freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.”
• Twitter stops policing Covid misinformation (Wall Street Journal) Twitter is loosening moderation guidelines and has stopped enforcing policies aimed at stopping Covid misinformation.
• Apple has “mostly” stopped twitter ads (Mac Rumors) “Apple has cut back on its Twitter advertising, according to Twitter CEO Elon Musk. In a tweet, Musk said that Apple has “mostly stopped” its Twitter ads, asking if Apple hates “free speech.”
• Are we officially saying goodbye to Twitter? It depends on who you ask The evolution of suspended accounts, fired executives, and Musk’s terrible jokes.
• Twitter adds Official badge, then Musk immediately kills it Exactly what it says.
• How brands and agencies are reacting to Elon Musk’s radical changes at Twitter Many, including GM, General Mills, and Apple have suspended their accounts.
• Elon Musk taking over Twitter, but most marketers not worried Did we speak too soon?

What happened:

• In January, Elon Musk started investing in Twitter, securing a 9.2% stake, making him the largest shareholder in the company.

• Musk reached an acquisition deal with Twitter in April but raised concerns over spam accounts on the platform, claiming Twitter had not provided him with an accurate estimate of their number.

• Also, in April, Twitter announced that Musk would join the company’s board of directors. Shortly after, Musk said he would not be joining the board after all.

• By mid-April, Musk offers to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share, valuing the company at about $43 billion, according to a securities filing.

• Twitter adopts a poison pill provision to prevent the Musk acquisition but then accepts Musk’s offer to acquire the company and values the deal at $44 billion.

• In May, when Musk said the deal was on “temporary hold” over bot concerns. Musk posted a Reuters report about a public filing from Twitter earlier in May that said fake accounts made up less than 5% of users on the platform. Musk then says he wants “details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts represent less than 5% of users.” Two hours later, Musk says he’s “still committed” to the deal.

• Fast forward to July, Musk moves to terminate his acquisition of Twitter, pointing to the issue of fake accounts. Twitter sues Musk to force him to complete the deal.

• By October, after a months-long effort to terminate the deal, Musk proposes to complete the deal at the original offer price of $54.20 a share at a total cost of roughly $44 billion.

• At the end of October, Musk closed a deal to acquire Twitter on the final day before the trial would have moved forward. Additionally, many of Twitter’s top executives were fired, including CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and general counsel Sam Edgett, according to a source.

• Musk said that he would forgo any significant content moderation or account reinstatement decisions until after forming a new committee devoted to the issues. “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints,” Musk tweeted. “No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.”

• In November, Twitter began massive layoffs, cutting its staff of 7,500 to nearly half.

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