This month, Elon Musk created a huge dumpster fire at Twitter. Musk –who tried to back out of the deal in July– was legally forced to go through with the 44 billion dollar acquisition of the social media giant. What followed has been absolutely nuts. Grab some popcorn, let’s take you through what’s going on at Twitter.
At the end of October, Musk tweeted that Twitter Blue verification would be offered to users for 20 bucks a month. Days later, he defended the program against Twitter users and celebs. Luckily for those who planned to purchase Twitter Blue, Stephen King got everyone a sweet discount:
On Nov 4th, almost 3700 Twitter employees were laid off without notice, which is super relevant as it’s caused a massive PR disaster for the tech giant, with many advertisers and users pulling both $$ and their accounts.
Between the launch of Elon’s version of Twitter Blue on the 8th and the pausing of the service on the 11th, anyone had the power to erase billions of dollars in market cap for a mere 8 dollars. Users would buy verification and impersonate celebrities, companies, and especially Musk himself. It’s estimated that this Tweet, impersonating American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Co, cost them almost 15 billion dollars and has not recovered as of today.
A few days later, Musk decided to get rid of Twitter’s bloatware’: microservices that he deemed unimportant. This included the program that sent two-factor authentication codes to users trying to log in to their accounts, leaving many locked out. As of publication, users are still reporting issues with the service for email and SMS codes.
Elon announced that Twitter Blue would return on Nov 29th. Managers have also been contacting software engineers who were laid off and asking them to return, which may have seemed exciting before this slack message from a senior Twitter manager leaked://
It’s a worrying time for Twitter. Many are leaving for a renewed Tumblr (nudity is back!), or Mastodon, which boasts a decentralized (and confusing) platform. Elon told Twitter employees in an email that “bankruptcy isn’t out of the question.” Not surprising after the mass exodus of advertisers that the company is seeing right now. Thankfully, SpaceX did make a large ad spend on the site, which is definitely not the government funding Twitter with extra steps (SpaceX received almost 3 billion dollars from NASA last year).
Also, Elon just announced that he is looking for someone to take over as CEO. So he might be in and out in less than one Truss.
Which massive drug company are you planning on impersonating on the 29th? What’s been your favorite tweet from this whole debacle?
Let's Snack Toronto Inc. 