A Mammoth Decision That Kept Stock Market In A Precarious Situation
Musk began investing in Twitter in January 2022 and by the end of March 2022, he owned 9% of shares, making him the largest shareholder of Twitter. By April he struck a deal with Twitter to buy the same for $44 billion, of which, on average, each share had a weight of $52.
As far as acquisition is concerned, my opinion is eclectic. Neither I say it’s a good move nor a knee-jerk move. Because it has its flaws and strengths in various aspects.
A colossal choice that left the stock market in a fragile position
A Story Of Perplexity
Ever since Musk decided to own Twitter, there have been events of high drama that occurred from early January 2022 to the finalization of the deal in October 2022. Musk initially began by investing in Twitter and gradually he acquired most of it. Initially, he nodded deal for $44 billion; however, due to paucity of funds, he tried to renege on the deal and renegotiate at $33 billion, citing the prevalence of unaccounted fake accounts and bots on Twitter. But Twitter filed a lawsuit in Delaware Court against Musk for infringement of deal terms & conditions, which led him to take over reluctantly.
Business Decisions Post-Acquisition
Following the Twitter takeover in October 2022, Musk made rigorous decisions in the days ahead. He fired top executives of Twitter, including the CEO and CFO. He laid off half of the company staff and temporarily froze hiring plans to attenuate the impact of the financial burden that he underwent to buy Twitter.
"I invested in Twitter because I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, which is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” added Musk.
As Musk said, a staunch supporter of freedom of speech could be a double-edged sword shortly because it could be fraught with toxic content and misinformation that could hurt others' sentiments. For instance, in India, hate speech is prevalent over social media platforms, which led to huge catastrophes in the past.
He introduced a new version of the subscription service for verified accounts, which costs around $8 monthly. Musk also did with content moderation policies, eliminated spam, added new features, and made algorithms more transparent about content promotion.
Impact On Company’s Image And Workflow
Following the rigorous decisions by the Musk administration, there was a wide range of outbursts from social media users, ranging from financial to impersonation to authenticity.
The new features and paid services all disparaged the image of Twitter and the iconic mascot of the Twitter bird was replaced with Alphabet X.
The verified account for paid subscriptions has created room for the impersonation of many high profiles.
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