Whether you like it or not, the most talked-about story of the past six months has been Elon Musk and his acquisition of Twitter. The billionaire bought the microblogging site precisely five months ago, and a lot has transpired since then. After months of negotiations, Musk did in fact purchase Twitter for $44 billion, but the firm is currently only worth $20 billion, less than half of what it was originally purchased for. Curious about the events of the last five months? Yes, there is a lot to it.
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On October 27, 2022, Musk became the owner of Twitter. Shortly after, he succeeded Parag Agrawal as CEO. The billionaire dismissed a number of high-ranking personnel in addition to Agrawal, including Vijaya Gadde, the former chief legal officer, and others.
Musk, who is the CEO of Twitter at the moment and is the owner of four other businesses, plans to leave the role by the end of the year. He is currently searching for a new CEO for Twitter. Musk, meanwhile, is adamant that he does not wish to provide the incoming CEO total authority. Rather, he will still be in charge of the server and software teams. “As soon as I find someone stupid enough to accept the position, I will step down as CEO! I’ll merely manage the servers and software teams after that,” Musk stated in an earlier tweet.
The events of the previous five months have completely altered Twitter’s destiny, regardless of what occurs at the end of the year or if Musk resigns as CEO of the company. In the past several months, the company’s worth has decreased by more than half, from $44 billion to $20 billion, something Musk may not have intended. However, after eliminating thousands of jobs, selling office equipment, terminating janitors, launching the Blue membership, and other changes, Twitter is currently valued at $20 billion.
Twitter’s value has dropped by half, and one of the main causes is that advertisers are backing out. According to reports, during the first few weeks of January, almost half of the top 1,000 advertisers on Twitter in September allegedly ceased spending money there. As of January, around 625 of the top 1,000 Twitter advertisers—which included well-known companies like Coca-Cola, Unilever, Jeep, Wells Fargo, and Merck—had stopped spending money on advertisements, according to a CNN article. Nevertheless, Musk is making every effort to rebuild Twitter and entice advertisers back to the network. Musk also expressed gratitude to sponsors in December of last year for coming back to the platform. Actually, there was a time when Apple nearly stopped running advertisements on Twitter, but they eventually started running again. Amazon is in the same boat.
Over half of the advertisers have removed their advertising from the site, despite the fact that others are returning. Musk let go of almost half the staff, including hundreds of Indian workers, in an attempt to make up for the loss. The tycoon reportedly began bidding on office furniture and kitchen equipment and ceased paying rent in certain places as part of his cost-cutting strategies. So much so that Musk also ended Twitter’s complimentary lunch/food program, which co-founder Jack Dorsey had started.
Concurrently, one of the wealthiest individuals on the planet unveiled the Blue membership service, which charges customers a fee in exchange for a blue checkmark appearing next to their name. The business has said that all active Twitter accounts with a blue checkmark that do not have a paid membership would lose their tick marks as of April 1, 2023. For $8, users can purchase the Blue membership if they require the blue tick, access to the edit button, long-form tweets, and other features.
Musk is optimistic about Twitter’s value despite its declining value, and he is collaborating with the company’s surviving staff members to roll out new features and improvements each week that will improve the user experience as a whole. Therefore, it remains to be seen where Twitter will be in another five months.