Elon Musk’s first day at the helm of Twitter has been predictably colorful, giving the financial media the choicest of morsels to salivate over as the world’s richest person begins the arduous task of “cleansing” the social media platform of its supposedly toxic elements. Yesterday, Elon Musk fired Twitter’s former CEO, Parag Agrawal, its CFO, Ned Segal, and the company’s head of legal policy, trust, and safety, Vijaya Gadde. Readers should note that Gadde is widely considered the pivotal person who was responsible for booting the former US President Trump off Twitter. This development lend credence to the reports that circulated last week and which suggested that Musk might fire as much as 75 percent of Twitter’s workforce. Today, a number of Twitter employees came forward to announce that they were summarily dismissed. However, CNBC was later able to determine that such claims were nothing more than a hoax.
No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022 In what might be the most significant step taken so far, Elon Musk has announced the creation of a “widely diverse” content moderation council that will serve as the focal point for decisions regarding censorship policies and account reinstatements.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022 Readers would remember that Elon Musk had penned an open letter to advertisers earlier this week, exhorting continued cooperation as Twitter is transformed into “the most respected advertising platform” in the world. It seems that the letter has had a negligible impact, as the Wall Street Journal is now reporting that major brands have threatened to simply walk away from the social media platform if Donald Trump’s account is restored. In fact, General Motors as well as around a dozen clients of the advertising agency GroupM have already demanded the suspension of their advertisements on Twitter as they assess the direction of the social media giant under Elon Musk’s leadership. Of course, it is as yet unclear whether Trump, who is seemingly content to bask in his own echo chamber that is Truth Social, will deign to return to Twitter even if his access is restored.
— Naval (@naval) September 30, 2022 Meanwhile, Elon Musk has apparently spent much of today interviewing relatively low-ranking engineering managers. We can imagine how those interactions must have begun: “What did you get done this week?”
