Tag: Elon Musk

  • No more blue ticks for Twitter users who don’t pay for verification

    No more blue ticks for Twitter users who don’t pay for verification

    On Thursday, Elon Musk’s social media platform followed through on its promise to eliminate blue verification checks from accounts that don’t pay a monthly fee. The blue checks have been removed from the accounts of many prominent public figures and celebrities on Twitter, including Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Pope Francis, and Donald Trump.

    The purge came after Musk introduced Twitter Blue, a paid service that aims to democratize journalism and empower the people’s voice. Before Musk ended the verification system, roughly 300,000 users had the blue check mark, which helped differentiate real public figures from impostors and protected against fake news.

    Following the change, some users, such as Stephen King, still have the blue check mark but claimed not to have paid for the new service. Musk responded to King’s tweet with “You’re welcome namaste” and revealed that he’s “personally paying for a few [accounts].” Musk has been attempting to increase Twitter’s revenue by offering subscription and premium services since buying the social media company for $44 billion last October. Musk previously described the system that assigned the check marks as “corrupt and nonsensical.”

    Twitter began tagging users with a blue check mark roughly 14 years ago. After Twitter Blue’s introduction, numerous fake accounts emerged, including some impersonating Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX. Twitter temporarily suspended the service days later. The cost to display the verified check mark under the new service ranges from $8 per month for individuals to $1,000 per month for organisations.

    Politicians and official bodies have also been affected by the Thursday purge, with concerns raised that the public will be unable to identify which Twitter accounts provide information about natural disasters. US Senator Brian Schatz tweeted, “There really ought to be a way for emergency managers to verify that they are real on this website or imposters will cause suffering and death.” According to digital intelligence platform Similarweb, only 116,000 accounts signed up for Twitter Blue last month.

  • Twitter bird statue sells for $100,000 as Musk auctions off old office mementos

    Twitter bird statue sells for $100,000 as Musk auctions off old office mementos

    A Twitter bird statue fetched $100,000 on Wednesday as owner Elon Musk auctioned off furniture, decorations, kitchen equipment, and more from the tech firm’s San Francisco headquarters.

    A 10-foot neon light in the form of Twitter’s bird logo was included in an online auction of “surplus corporate office assets of Twitter” that lasted just over 24 hours and received a winning price of $40,000, the Heritage Global Partners auction service reported.

    Espresso machines, ergonomically sound desks, televisions, bicycle-powered charging stations, pizza ovens, and a colourful planter in the form of a “@” sign were some of the 631 lots.

    As he set out to hire a new CEO for his struggling social media network, Musk claimed in December that drastic cost cutbacks at Twitter had fixed the company’s poor financial situation.

    At the time, the erratic billionaire claimed in a live chat room that Twitter would have lost $3 billion annually without the reforms, which included sacking more than half of its staff.

    At the platform he paid $44 billion for, Musk claimed to have been “reducing expenses like crazy.”

    Shortly after taking over Twitter, Musk let go roughly half of its 7,500 employees, raising concerns that the firm lacked the manpower to handle content moderation and alarmed regulators, advertisers, and governments.

    According to Musk, his strategy is to drastically cut expenses while increasing revenue and a new $8 monthly membership service dubbed Twitter Blue will aid in achieving this objective.

    Mass layoffs, the reinstatement of blocked accounts, and the suspension of journalists who criticise the wealthy South African-born Elon Musk have all contributed to the instability that has gripped Musk’s Twitter.

    Racist or offensive tweets also increased after Musk’s takeover, which attracted regulatory attention and drove away major advertisers, Twitter’s primary source of income.

  • Twitter sued for failing to pay San Francisco office rent

    Twitter sued for failing to pay San Francisco office rent

    Elon Musk’s social media company is being sued by California Property Trust, the owner of the building where Twitter’s headquarters are located, for failing to pay $136,250 in rent.

    Bloomberg reports (via The Verge) that on December 16th, the company informed Twitter that it would be in breach of its contract for the 30th floor of the Hartford Building in San Francisco if it did not make the unpaid rent payment within four days.

    Twitter was said to have disobeyed the order by California Property Trust in a complaint submitted this week to the San Francisco County Superior Court.

    The New York Times reported on December 13 that Twitter had just stopped paying rent on all of its international locations to reduce costs. In addition, the business is being sued for failing to reimburse Musk for $197,725 in charter flights he took during his first week working for Twitter. In the same time frame, Musk is said to have bolstered Twitter’s legal team with “more than half a dozen” attorneys from SpaceX.

  • Elon Musk will step down as Twitter CEO once he finds a ‘foolish enough’ replacement

    Elon Musk will step down as Twitter CEO once he finds a ‘foolish enough’ replacement

    The billionaire Elon Musk announced on Tuesday that he will step down as Twitter’s CEO once he finds a replacement, although he will continue to oversee some crucial departments of the social media network.

    “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” Musk wrote on Twitter.

    Some investors have questioned if Musk is too preoccupied to properly operate his electric vehicle automaker Tesla, in which he is actively involved in production and engineering. Musk’s $44 billion buyout of Twitter in October has been defined by upheaval and controversy.

    After Twitter users chose for him to stand down in a poll that the billionaire started on Sunday night, Musk has now publicly acknowledged leaving his position as the social media platform’s CEO for the first time.

    17.5 million individuals participated in the poll, and 57.5 per cent of them chose “yes.” Musk declared on Sunday that he will follow the outcomes. He has not specified a date for his resignation, and no replacement has been named.

    The survey findings brought to a close a hectic week that saw modifications to Twitter’s privacy policy and the suspension and reactivation of journalist accounts, all of which garnered criticism from news outlets, advocacy groups, and government officials across Europe.

    Musk stated in a Twitter Spaces session that Twitter’s cash flow will achieve break-even in 2023, according to a tweet from Bloomberg on Wednesday.

    Bloomberg claimed that Musk explained the forecast as a result of recent cost-cutting initiatives he has implemented on the social media site.

    Wall Street has been calling on Musk to leave for weeks, and more recently even Tesla supporters have questioned his focus on social media and whether it would be a distraction from operating the EV manufacturer.

    Musk has acknowledged that he has too much on his plate and that he will search for a new CEO of Twitter. But he claimed on Sunday that there was no one in place to take his place and that “no one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive.”

  • More than 10 million users think Elon Musk should step down as Twitter’s CEO

    More than 10 million users think Elon Musk should step down as Twitter’s CEO

    Less than two months after taking over as CEO of the social media network, Elon Musk faced outrage from Twitter users who voted in a poll for him to resign.

    According to the poll the billionaire started on Sunday night, almost 57.5 per cent of votes were in favour of Musk stepping down as the CEO of Twitter, while 42.5 per cent were opposed. There were over 17.5 million voters.

    Musk said on Sunday that he would follow the poll’s findings, although he did not specify when he would resign if the results called for it.

    In premarket trade, shares of Tesla Inc., the electric vehicle manufacturer that Musk leads, were up roughly 3 per cent at $154.70.

    The poll is the most recent development in Musk’s chaotic time in office as Twitter CEO since October, which has included firing thousands of employees and members of top management at a rapid clip, haggling over how much to charge for Twitter Blue, a subscription service, and restoring banned accounts like that of former US President Donald Trump.

  • Twitter reverses controversial new policy that bans links to other social media platforms

    Twitter reverses controversial new policy that bans links to other social media platforms

    Less than 24 hours after it was first introduced, Twitter removed its controversial new policy that banned links to certain other social media sites on Sunday evening.

    Elon Musk, the platform’s owner, asked Twitter users if they thought he should step down as the platform’s CEO before the development took place. The results of the poll are expected early on Monday.

    Twitter deleted the tweet that listed the competing websites users will not be allowed to tweet links to, including Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Truth Social, in response to a significant backlash against the policy.

    Additionally, it removed a tweet thread from its @TwitterSupport account that had earlier in the day announced the policy.

    Another official Twitter account, @TwitterSafety, is now running a poll asking users whether the platform should “have a policy preventing the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms.” That poll is set to conclude Monday at 9 pm Eastern time.

  • Elon Musk disables Twitter Spaces after clash with journalists

    Elon Musk disables Twitter Spaces after clash with journalists

    Twitter Inc.’s live audio platform, Twitter Spaces, is down after many journalists who had just had their accounts suspended learned they could still participate in it.

    Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, announced late on Thursday that the company was resolving an old fault and that the audio service “should be working tomorrow.”

    Earlier, Musk’s network suspended journalists for seven days, including those from CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, for allegedly leaking the whereabouts of his private jet.

    Drew Harwell of the Washington Post and Matt Binder of Mashable, two of the suspended reporters, joined BuzzFeed News reporter Katie Notopoulos on Twitter Spaces to discuss the sudden wave of suspensions.

    They could no longer post new tweets and their old ones were no longer viewable, but they could still interact with other users on the Spaces site.

    Musk also joined the session after it attracted thousands of listeners to bluntly state that anyone who doxxes—gives another person’s personal location information—will be suspended. The journalists said that they had not posted any real-time flight data, as Musk alleged, but by then the billionaire had quit the call.

    The live session drew more than 40,000 listeners at its peak.

  • Twitter may introduce different colour checks for organisations and individuals

    Twitter may introduce different colour checks for organisations and individuals

    Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, announced on Monday that the social media platform is delaying the resumption of its blue check subscription service, deviating from his initial tentative timetable to do so.

    “Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation,” Musk said in a tweet.

    “Will probably use different color check for organisations than individuals.”

    Earlier, only verified accounts of prominent figures including journalists, legislators, and well-known people could display the coveted blue check mark.

    But earlier this month, Twitter launched a membership option that is available to anybody willing to pay in order to increase income as Musk battles to keep advertisers.

    Due to the proliferation of bogus accounts, Twitter stopped the newly introduced $8 blue check membership service and indicated that it will resume on November 29.

    Musk noted in another tweet that the 1.6 million new users on Twitter during the last week were “another all-time high.”

    As they adjust to the new leader, Twitter advertisers, including major corporations like General Motors, Mondelez International, and Volkswagen AG, have suspended their campaigns.

    According to estimates, hundreds of Twitter employees left their jobs last week after Musk gave them until Thursday to sign up for “long hours at high intensity” or go.