2023-10-27 19:53:37
All about Elon Musk
All about Twitter
Elon Musk bought Twitter – the former name of the social network now called X – for US$44 billion (approximately R$218 billion, at current prices) exactly one year ago. And there was no shortage of troubles to mark these 12 months of his management, both in the role of CEO and outside of it.
For those in a hurry:
Elon Musk bought Twitter a year ago for $44 billion – and since then, the number of active users on the platform has declined by more than 30%; Musk’s influence on the platform has resulted in the platform tilting to the right, especially in United States;Due to the changes promoted by Musk, Twitter is facing commercial challenges, with a drop in advertisers and revenue, despite optimistic statements made by the platform’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino.
Since then, the number of active users on the social network has fallen by more than 30%, while the billionaire’s company – also owner of Tesla and SpaceX – loses advertisers and revenue. On the other hand, Musk fulfilled his original promise: Twitter has become much less “woke” (English slang whose translation is similar to “lacrador” in Brazil today).
Read more:
The newspaper The Washington Post published an analysis of what changed on the social network since Musk took control. Check out the highlights below:
Twitter sob Musk
Image: Pedro Spadoni/Olhar Digital
Through dramatic product changes, sudden policy reversals and his own prominent presence on the platform, Musk quickly reshaped who has a voice on a platform that used to be the center of real-time news and global debate. Check out the highlights of the newspaper’s analysis below:
Right turn
A site that boosted social movements like the Arab Spring, Black Lives Matter and #MeToo has tilted noticeably to the right under Musk, especially in the United States, say organizers across the political spectrum interviewed by the newspaper.
An analysis by the newspaper of dozens of conservative and right-wing influencers and media figures found that many saw their follower numbers increase the day Musk became owner and have continued to rise at a higher rate than under Twitter’s previous ownership. None of the dozens of popular liberal and left-wing accounts examined by the outlet show the same pattern.
Musk has taken Twitter in an explicitly political direction, according to the Washington Post. He publicly endorsed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president and hosted the launch of his campaign for the Republican nomination on Twitter Spaces. He reinstated the account of Donald Trump, who had been permanently banned for his tweets about the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
(Image: Koshiro K/Shutterstock)
When Musk hired a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, one of his first moves was to try to attract former Fox News host Tucker Carlson to launch his new show on X, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. . Carlson and X signed a revenue-sharing agreement earlier this month, according to the newspaper.
Musk has deepened the company’s rightward shift by displacing mainstream media from a position of authority on the site: both the X software and the iconic blue “check” verification system now elevate tweets from paid subscribers — many of them conservative influencers.
People who have worked with Musk and his CEO, Linda Yaccarino, say they intend to turn X into a standalone forum for content from creators, where people can watch original shows like Carlson’s.
In the face of these changes, the platform has become a cacophony of misinformation and confusing reporting, according to new research from the University of Washington, which finds that self-described news aggregators and open source researchers have far outnumbered traditional media on the site during the war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.
Musk’s motivations
Musk wasn’t always so partisan. He says he supported former President Barack Obama and his business interests in Tesla were aligned with liberal support for clean energy subsidies. But, according to the newspaper, he became disenchanted with the left due to his criticism of billionaires, support for unions, and race and gender policies.
As Walter Isaacson detailed in a recently published biography of Musk, Musk’s son’s transition from male to female, embrace of Marxism, and rejection of Musk intensified his visceral resentment of the left.
(Imagem: Frederic Legrand/Shutterstock)
In 2021, Musk criticized lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic and denounced what he called a “sealing mental virus” that he argued was threatening the future of civilization. As he spent time on Twitter, he saw symptoms of the “virus” in the social platform’s policies regarding what he considered hate speech.
During this same period, Musk began accumulating Twitter shares, using his personal fortune to become the company’s largest shareholder. “You know, could you buy Twitter and then delete it, please!?” his ex-wife Talulah Riley sent him a message on March 24, according to text messages released as part of a subsequent lawsuit and published by Bloomberg.
Musk responded: “Maybe buy it and change it to properly support free speech.” Three weeks later, he offered to buy the company outright.
Anika Collier Navaroli, who worked on Twitter’s policy side and testified in 2022 before the Jan. 6 House committee, said Musk, in many ways, is taking Twitter back to the “pre-2016” era. “It feels a lot like Elon Musk’s version of free speech for him and his friends to be able to post hate speech without getting in trouble,” she said.
Business problems
Yaccarino said in a recent talk that Twitter’s business was improving: 90 of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers had returned to the service and the platform had 540 million active users, more than double the 206 million it had in 2021.
However, now that the company is privately owned and does not need to file reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), there is little reliable data on the business.
Furthermore, data obtained by the newspaper, along with interviews with people familiar with the company’s business, contradict Yaccarino’s optimistic view.
(Image: Camilo Concha/Shutterstock)
“Revenue hasn’t come back, advertisers haven’t come back – and a big part of that is because of Elon. The math doesn’t add up,” said a person familiar with the company’s operations, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Similarweb, a digital data and analytics company, said global web traffic to , fell 16.5%.
Marketing consulting firm Ebiquity, which works with 70 of the top 100 advertisers in the United States, said this month that only two of its clients advertise on X – a drop from 31 in the month before Musk closed the purchase. .
#year #Twitter #Elon #Musk #changed