Yesterday (April 14) marks one year since Elon Musk announced his offer to buy Twitter. And what an eventful year it was. First came some backpedaling by Musk, and legal challenges surrounding the acquisition. After the Musk era officially began, there were mass layoffs and changes to the platform, with many Musk tweets and poop emojis along the way.
Ready for a rundown of Twitter’s history under Musk? Let’s doom-scroll.
April 14, 2022.
Musk offers to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, valuing the company at about $43 billion.
“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk writes in a letter to Brett Taylor, then the chairman of Twitter’s board.
April 15, 2022.
Twitter’s board of directors adopts a poison pill defense, buying it time to consider Musk’s proposal.
A few days later, Twitter executives present the company’s current business plans and financial projections, as an alternative to Musk’s offer.
April 21, 2022.
Musk announces that he secured $46.5 billion in financing for the acquisition, the first real assurance that Musk would be able to buy the company.
May 4, 2022.
Musk secures $6.25 billion in investment from third parties. Why would one of the world’s richest people need the help? Because Musk could not buy Twitter without selling large portions of his Tesla stock. Outside investors include the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, the crypto exchange Binance, and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
June 6, 2022.
Musk seeks to terminate his acquisition of Twitter, pointing to its bot problem. “Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information,” his SEC filing notes.
Musk estimates that fake accounts make up at least 20% of all users. The company says the figure is closer to 5%.
July 12, 2022.
Twitter sues Musk in Chancery Court in Delaware to force him to complete the $44 billion deal.
Oct. 28, 2022.
Elon Musk now owns Twitter, closing the deal the day before a five-day trial trial was expected to start.
Musk begins to clean house, firing at least four Twitter executives—including CEO Parag Agrawal.
Musk writes on Twitter: “It is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence. There is currently a great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”
Nov. 3, 2022.
Brands such as General Mills and Volkswagen Group pause advertising spending on the platform, citing uncertainty about the direction of the company under Musk.
Nov. 4, 2022.
Twitter begins layoffs in an effort to set the company on a “healthy path.” The company lays off roughly half of its 7,500 employees (it won’t be the only round of layoffs). Days later, Musk asks some dozen fired workers to come back. Management realizes that some of the people who were let go were necessary to building Musk’s vision.
Nov. 8, 2022.
Twitter reveals a new verification scheme called Twitter Blue, allowing users to buy a checkmark for $7.99 a month. The checkmark previously was used to show that an account was verified or official. Musk had criticized Twitter’s original verification system, citing that it gives blue checks to notable users likely to be impersonated by bad actors.
Following that change, fake accounts flooded Twitter—including one impersonating the drug company Eli Lilly that was offering fake insulin—prompting the company to stop the rollout.
To be fair, Musk had tweeted:
Nov. 16, 2022.
Musk tells employees to commit to “extremely hardcore” work or to leave the company.
“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore,” Musk reportedly wrote in a late-night internal email. “This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.
Mus adds that Twitter will be “much more engineering-driven.”
Nov. 19, 2022.
Trump’s Twitter account is restored, along with that of other previously banned figures, including Canadian author Jordan Peterson and comedian Kathy Griffin.
Dec. 12, 2022.
Twitter Blue relaunches, with the service costing $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for iOS users who purchase it through Apple’s app store. The latter is an effort to circumvent Apple’s 30% cut.
The new Twitter Blue allows users to edit tweets and get early access to new features. As part of the relaunch, businesses will receive a gold checkmark and governments will receive a gray checkmark. Days later, Twitter bans Elon Jet, the account tracking Musk’s flights.
Dec. 20, 2022.
After a backlash to the suspension of several accounts of journalists, Musk tweets he would step down as CEO as soon as he finds someone “foolish enough” to succeed him.
Jan. 20, 2023.
Twitter rolls out a “For You” timeline, so users see both algorithmic and chronological feeds side-by-side. Twitter also rolls out a bookmark feature, allowing users to easily save tweets for later.
Apr. 1, 2023.
Twitter says it will kill “legacy” blue checks—on April Fool’s Day. Musk later tweets that the final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20.
Mar. 30, 2023
Twitter announces multiple levels of API access, including free, basic, and enterprise tiers, with varying costs. In February, Twitter ends free access to its API, as part of the new pathways to monetizing Twitter. The basic tier for the API will cost $100 per month.
Apr. 4, 2023.
Twitter, Inc. rebrands to X Corp, according to a court filing in California.
Apr. 12, 2023.
National Public Radio (NPR) says it will no longer publish on Twitter, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform.
Apr. 13, 2023.
Musk partners with eToro to show stocks and crypto prices in real-time.
Apr. 14, 2023.
Twitter introduces a new feature that will let Blue subscribers post 10,000-character-long posts, competing with rival newsletter companies.