Twitter’s Demise: Elon Musk’s Effect on the Company

Elon Musk, as we all know, is the new owner of Twitter. The owner of Tesla, SpaceX, and now Twitter is expanding his empire, but is this positive or negative? He bought the previously public company in July, and paid $44 billion for the app. 

Before Musk took ownership of Twitter, the app was similar to many other social media platforms because users could be banned if they did not follow the rules set in place by the company. Musk is spreading a heavy “freedom of speech” message in which he refuses to ban users, no matter what they say. Due to this mentality, he is letting those who were previously banned from the platform back onto it. He has given Donald Trump access to his platform again, after it was revoked for the violence on January 6th, even though the previous management claimed that his account was “permanently banned.” 

In early November, Musk laid off half of the Twitter staff over email. He has fired thousands of people, many of whom worked for the company long before Musk arrived. Along with the major staff adjustment, he made yet another huge shift: Musk created a way for non-celebrities to become verified. Users pay Twitter eight dollars per month. Usually, a blue check is an indication of reliability and security. When users scroll through a platform and see a blue check, users think the account belongs to a person who is famous or trustworthy in some way. For the most part, that can be accurate, but with the new program that is extremely untrue now. Anyone can become verified in a matter of minutes without gaining any public approval. While Musk claims the company will remove the verification check from anyone impersonating another user, how can we be sure of that? Information we used to think was reliable now is having to be second guessed and questioned by the readers, more than is necessary. Recently, Musk allowed yet another thing to become unreliable. He lifted all mandates on COVID misinformation. He is not monitoring the information that is produced regarding the pandemic, which could lead to false information and dangerous outcomes. 

People who used to be in top positions at Twitter have come forward to share their opinions on the matter. The site’s previous Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, stated that, “It went off the rails in exactly the ways that we anticipated.” He shared that he thinks the platform is less secure due to Musk’s actions and style. Other previous Twitter officials have echoed the same message as Roth. 

It has become such a large problem that Apple, according to Musk, threatened to take Twitter off of the App Store, stopping people from downloading Twitter on Apple devices. Musk has been accusing Apple of hating free speech, but in reality Apple is likely doing this due to the immense danger Musk’s actions could cause. Recently Apple has opposed this accusation, and says that they never threatened to remove twitter, and now apple is being advertised on twitter again. So was this all a made up situation by Musk, or did the drama truly occur?

How will all of Musk’s actions affect his other companies? Will Apple ban Twitter from its App Store? How will the world be affected by Musk’s aggressive actions?