Elon Musk Officially Takes Over Twitter

Photo Credit via Pixabay

Artwork of Elon Musk freeing the bird aka Twitter. Was this a smart move? What consequences have come about through this transaction?

Selena Careri
News Editor

Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter began with firing top executives, recently reversing the ban on Kanye West’s account and causing many other problems in between.
After closing his deal on Oct. 20, Musk fired Parag Agrawal, Twitter Chief Executive; Ned Segal, Chief Financial Officer; and Vijaya Gadde, legal affairs and policy chief.
“Thursday concluded 5 years @twitter,” said Segal in a tweet on Oct. 28.
Agrawal initially welcomed Musk to the team in a tweet on April 5 but Musk put his partnership with Twitter on hold to investigate spam accounts, according to his tweet on May 13.
Twitter sued Musk for neglecting to file a Schedule 13 which is required when surpassing five percent ownership of stock, according to a press release from the Rosen Law Firm on May 29.
Musk accused the top executives of misleading him with the number of fake accounts on Twitter, which he wants to get rid of.
“I hereby challenge @paraga to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage. Let him prove to the public that Twitter has <5% fake or spam daily users!” said Musk in a tweet on Aug. 6.
Musk questioned Agrawal and his reluctancy to detect or suspend high levels of spam in many tweets over the past few months.
“The back and forth makes me feel uneasy,” said Elyssa Camacho, junior.
Musk also wants to push for free speech on the app, which is the main reason he wanted to take over Twitter.
“Sorry to be a free speech absolutist,” said Musk in a tweet on March 5.
Musk disagreed with the banning of Donald Trump and Kanye West’s accounts, who he recently welcomed back to the platform.
“Testing Testing Seeing if my Twitter is unblocked,” said West in a tweet on Nov. 20.
West was banned for his antisemitism tweet on Oct. 8.
“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda,” said West.
Musk’s reverse on the ban of West’s account implies that freedom of speech justifies West’s tweet.
Given the previous friendship between Musk and West, his actions weren’t surprising.
Musk is already receiving backlash from his many users and even world leaders for supporting this inappropriate language.
“Everyone knew Elon Musk would unban any celebrity who was banned during the election or in general,” said Camacho.
Musk has also been testing out different features on the app including Twitter Blue.
For only $8 a month, any account could become verified.
Users took advantage of this by pretending to be reliable sources.
Eli Lilly and Company, a pharmaceutical company that produces insulin, was impersonated by a verified twitter account @EliLillyandCo.
“We are excited to announce insulin is free now,” said the fake account in a tweet on Nov. 10.
The stock for Eli Lilly fell over four percent on Nov. 11.
Musk never addressed the problem on Twitter and instead informed users that they must include “parody” in their account name and bio if they want to impersonate a credited profile.
“Quite the day! Some epically funny tweets,” said Musk in a tweet on Nov. 11.
He found humor in this situation and even admitted that he will be doing a lot of dumb things on Twitter in coming months as the new Chief Executive.
Email Selena at:
scareri@live.esu.edu