Elon Musk, a business magnet and one of the richest people in the world, bought Twitter for $44 billion (£38 billion). After the acquisition, he tweeted that “the bird is freed,” but it was the beginning of something that later became Elon Musk social media in every sense. It is reported that a number of top executives, including Parag Agarwal, have been fired. Agarwal and two other executives were escorted out of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters.

Musk’s reign since has been unpredictable and controversial, and he has lost the title of the world’s richest man. Let’s take a look at some of the events and moments of those eventful weeks.

Firing Half of the Workforce

After the acquisition, Musk fired almost half of the employees, including the CEO, Parag Agarwal; Ned Segal, the chief financial officer; and Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal policy.

It was reported that Twitter had let go of 4,000 contractors in the fields of content moderation and engineering.

Musk defended his actions by saying that he had “no choice,” as Twitter was experiencing a loss of over $4 million per day.

In a tweet on November 5, he wrote that “regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.”

Musk’s tweets were followed by shocking revelations, such as sleeping at the office and working overtime, and they also received blunt emails about their role at Twitter after Musk took over.

Reinstating Banned Accounts

Elon Musk granted amnesty to all banned accounts, a dramatic policy shift that opens the doors for many high-profile figures to stage potential comebacks and join the likes of former American president Donald Trump and Kanye West.

Here are some of the accounts:

1. Steve Bannon: Steve Bannon was Trump’s former White House strategist and was banned in November 2020 after his controversial tweet.
2. Mike lindell: He was banned twice by Twitter. The first one was for spreading election misinformation, and the second one was for trying to skirt that ban with a new account.
3. Lin Wood: Lin Wood, a prominent lawyer and Trump supporter, had his account suspended for spreading conspiracy theories about the presidential election and a tweet inciting violence.
4. Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn, and Ron Watkins: They were Trump’s former election advisor, national security advisor, and former administrator of the far-right website 8kun, formerly 8chan, respectively. They were suspended for spreading baseless conspiracy theories about the presidential election.
5. Martin Shkreli: He was permanently banned for attempting to evade a temporary ban imposed for the targeted harassment of a journalist.
6. Roger Stone: He was a former Trump advisor. He was banned for attacking journalists online in 2017.

Suspending Journalists

Musk accused journalists of endangering his family and suspected an account that tracked his private jet.

Some of the journalists had reported on the suspension of the jet tracker. Musk talked about this as “assassination coordinates” for his family. The moves by Musk were criticized by many, including global bodies like the United Nations and the European Union.

Twitter has recently unveiled a policy update prohibiting the sharing of live location information.

Impacts on Tesla

Tesla was the reason behind Musk’s success; when Tesla shares gained more than 4,000% in the decade after the firm’s IPO, he became the richest man on the planet. In 2022, Tesla’s shares declined in value by 70% to $123; he lost the title when Tesla shares went down.A large number of investors worry that CEO Elon Musk is distracted with this takeover of Twitter.

“Resigning” as Boss

Musk said on December 20 that as soon as he found someone foolish enough to take the job, he would resign. This announcement was followed by a Twitter poll, and users voted decisively in favor of him standing down.

Twitter is a social media platform with more than 250 million daily users, and in the wrong hands, things can go very badly.