Musk completes his $44bn (£38.1bn) takeover of Twitter, immediately firing a number of the company’s top executives and tweeting “the bird is freed”.
Before officially taking charge of the company, Musk changed his Twitter profile to read “Chief Twit” and turned up to Twitter HQ in San Francisco carrying a sink, saying: “Let that sink in!”
Musk responds to concerns that he will loosen regulations at the company governing hate speech and misinformation by saying he’s “not yet made any changes”. He adds that a new “content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints” will meet before any policy changes.
After a surge in tweets containing racist language, Twitter’s head of trust and safety says: “Hateful conduct has no place here.” Yoel Roth says the company is taking action against users “involved in this trolling campaign” to make Twitter safe and welcoming for everyone.
Musk tweets a link to an article containing a number of inaccuracies about an attack on the husband of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi by a hammer-wielding intruder. The site has a history of publishing inaccurate stories and Musk later deletes the tweet after a backlash.
With just over a week to go before the US midterm elections, Musk responds to questions about whether he will reinstate former President Donald Trump’s account on Twitter by tweeting: “If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if Trump is coming back on this platform, Twitter would be minting money!”
President Trump’s account was suspended after a tweet he sent was deemed to have encouraged his supporters when they stormed the US Congress on 6 January 2021 in a bid to stop Joe Biden’s election victory from being certified.
Later that day, Musk attended a halloween party in New York and posed for photographs wearing a “Devil’s champion” costume.
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Following reports that Twitter will begin charging users to have verified accounts, Musk responds to criticism from author Stephen King by saying: “We need to pay the bills somehow!”.
Employees at the company begin receiving emails entitled “Your Role at Twitter” informing them whether they have lost their jobs. Some staff tweeted that their accounts had been locked and their laptops had been remotely wiped.
Yoel Roth, the head of trust and safety, said 50% of the company’s nearly 8,000 employees had been laid off but sought to reassure users and advertisers that the platform’s moderation capacity remained intact.
Responding to news about the layoffs, Musk tweeted: “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.”
Twitter co-founder and ex-CEO Jack Dorsey breaks his silence over the Musk takeover to apologise to staff who have lost their jobs, saying: “I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly.”
Musk announces that Twitter accounts impersonating people without being clearly labelled a parody will be permanently suspended – a change to the previous process when accounts were given a warning before being closed down.
A number of accounts that changed their name to “Elon Musk” and mocked the billionaire had already been suspended or placed behind a warning sign.
In his first email to Twitter staff, Musk warns that the “economic picture ahead is dire” and adds: “Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn.” In a controversial move, he also told employees they could no longer work from home unless they had a specific exception.
Meanwhile, after the launch of the $8-a-month Twitter Blue subscription, which gives paying users a blue tick, a slew of parody accounts that appear to be verified emerge, including a fake George W Bush account that tweets: “I miss killing Iraqis”.
More high-profile staff quit, including head of trust and safety Yoel Roth and chief security officer Lea Kissner.
The option to subscribe to Twitter Blue disappears after its initial bumpy roll-out. Musk later confirms that the launch of the service has been put back to the end of November “to make sure that it is rock solid”.
Reports in US media say thousands of contractors who had been working for Twitter have had their contracts terminated. Technology news site Platformer says as many as 80% of its 5,500 contractor workforce were laid off in the move but the company made no official announcement.
In a late-night email to all Twitter staff, Musk says employees must commit to a “hardcore” culture of working “long hours at high intensity” or leave the company.
In a surprise announcement, Twitter says its company offices will be closed temporarily but does not say why. The move comes amid reports that large numbers of Twitter staff had chosen to resign rather than sign up to the future “hardcore” working environment described by Musk.
Responding to fears the platform was about to shut down due to losing key staff, Musk tweeted: “The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried.”
