For many market watchers and even informal observers of headlines over the final a number of years, the final 24 hours have been huge: Elon Musk, the celebrated house entrepreneur, prolific and provocative Tweeter and the world’s richest man, has lastly closed his $44 billion buy of Twitter.
Elon Musk – who can also be Tesla’s CEO – confirmed the deal in lower than 280 characters. He now holds one of many world’s strongest megaphones.
Here is what you – and Musk’s 110 million followers – must learn about his acquisition of the social media platform and his possession of what he calls a “digital city sq..”
That tweet was shortly met with a reply from European Union Inside Markets Commissioner Thierry Breton to Musk, who’s an everyday critic of worldwide regulators.
Some far-right accounts see enhance in followers, agency finds
As Elon Musk closed the deal to take over Twitter, some influential conservative figures noticed spikes in new followers, in line with knowledge from digital investigations firm Memetica.
Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, gained greater than 18,000 new followers within the final 24 hours. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado), in the meantime, gained 18,679 new followers throughout the identical interval. And greater than 3,700 accounts began following conservative media persona Candace Owens.
1000’s of the accounts which have adopted the far-right figures have been new to Twitter, created shortly earlier than the deal closed, in line with Memetica.
In the meantime, as reported by the New York Times, knowledge from social media analytics agency Social Blade confirmed that accounts for progressive politicians and celebrities together with former President Barack Obama, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow have been shedding followers Friday.
Antisemitism spreads on Twitter after Musk takeover, ADL says
The ADL Middle on Extremism mentioned it recognized a coordinated effort to unfold antisemitic content material on Twitter following Musk’s takeover.
In the midst of 24 hours, the ADL mentioned greater than 1,200 tweets and retweets propagated antisemitic memes.
The trouble started Thursday by way of an nameless publish on 4chan, which gave directions on the right way to unfold the content material. The publish was then shared on a number of extremist Telegram channels, in line with the ADL.
“This strategic spread of hateful content on @Twitter warrants concern for the way extremists view potential adjustments to Twitter’s content material guidelines,” the group tweeted. “The marketing campaign additionally follows weeks of #antisemitic discourse being unfold by public figures.”
Musk’s many roles: What number of firms does he run now?
With the takeover of Twitter, Musk now runs 5 firms in a number of industries: electrical automobile maker Tesla, rocket and satellite tv for pc firm SpaceX, tunneling firm The Boring Firm and neuroscience startup Neuralink.
Buyers fear that the competing calls for on his time are stretching Musk too skinny, notably at a time when Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX all face challenges.
Tesla has acknowledged in regulatory filings that its dependence on Musk is a danger issue.
“Though Mr. Musk spends vital time with Tesla and is very lively in our administration, he does not devote his full time and attention to Tesla,” the corporate mentioned.
However Musk’s energizer-bunny tempo has not appeared to place a damper on Tesla, the world’s most dear automotive firm, and SpaceX, one of many U.S.’s most dear startups.
Musk acknowledges that the extreme workload will get to him.
“It might be good to have a bit extra free time on my fingers, versus simply working day and night time from once I get up until once I fall asleep seven days every week. It’s fairly intense,” he mentioned final yr throughout a Tesla analyst briefing.
How did Elon Musk pay for Twitter?
Musk in April pledged $46.5 billion to finance the acquisition’s $44 billion price ticket plus closing prices.
The billionaire is utilizing a mix of money, financial institution loans and funding funds to finance the deal.
Musk, who already owned almost 10% of Twitter in market shares, is contributing greater than $27 billion in cash for the deal after promoting off greater than $15 billion price of Tesla shares earlier this yr.
One other $13 billion is backed by bank loans. Lenders embody Financial institution of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Mizuho, Morgan Stanley, MUFG and Societe Generale.
Then there’s $5.2 billion from equity investors:
- $25 million from lively funding agency A.M. Administration & Consulting
- $400 million from AH Capital Administration, a VC agency based by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz
- $360 million from SpaceX and Airbnb investor Aliya Capital Companions LLC
- $100 million from funding adviser BAMCO
- $500 million from cryptocurrency trade Binance
- $250 million from Brookfield, an alternate funding administration firm
- $100 million from SpaceX and Tesla investor DFJ Development IV Companions
- $316 million from funding advisor Constancy Administration & Analysis Firm
- $5 million from Honeycomb Asset Administration, a non-public funding agency led by David Fiszel
- $30 million from wealth administration firm Key Wealth Advisors
- $1 billion from Lawrence J. Ellison Revocable Belief, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison’s belief
- $25 million from client funding firm Litani Ventures
- $375 million from Qatar Holding, a worldwide funding home managed by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund
- $800 million from the enterprise capital agency Sequoia Capital Fund, which additionally invested in The Boring Firm
- $150 million from funding banking agency Strauss Capital
- $8.5 million from Tresser Blvd 402
- $700 million from VyCapital, a worldwide know-how funding agency that invested in The Boring Firm
- $100 million from funding agency Witkoff Capital
There have been additionally almost 35 million shares valued at $1.89 billion transferred from Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal.
Musk says Twitter is forming content material moderation council
Musk tweeted Friday that he’ll be “digging in” on lifting shadow bans and rolling again restrictions on customers. He later tweeted that Twitter would kind a content material moderation council “with extensively numerous viewpoints.”
“No main content material choices or account reinstatements will occur earlier than that council convenes,” Musk mentioned.
Twitter already has a council that advises on content moderation. It was not clear what would change into of it.
Fb’s Oversight Board supplied to ” focus on Twitter’s plans in additional element with the corporate.”
“Unbiased oversight of content material moderation has a significant position to play in constructing belief in platforms and making certain customers are handled pretty,” the board mentioned in an announcement. This can be a mannequin we’ve got been proving since 2020.”
Is Musk shedding Twitter staff?
Proper after the deal closed Thursday, a number of executives together with the CEO have been fired.
On Friday, individuals who recognized themselves as staff have been seen leaving the corporate’s San Francisco headquarters carrying bins, in line with CNBC.
However some Twitter staff speculated on firm Slack channels that the departures have been a hoax, folks conversant in the matter instructed Bloomberg.
– Jessica Guynn
Unsure if you wish to keep on Twitter or what to maintain out of your account?
A lot of Twitter’s estimated 250 million or so lively customers – out of its about 400 million registered customers – are now wondering what may occur to their private knowledge on a platform owned by Musk.
Whereas some have dedicated to deleting their profiles fully, others are ready on the sidelines to see how the corporate would possibly use their extremely private data or are leaning in additional to up their presence now that content material moderation is altering.
Unsure which one is best for you? Take a look at our tutorials on the right way to keep secure on-line from harassment, obtain your Twitter content material or depart the location altogether.
Find out how to delete Twitter knowledge
Twitter handles some 500 million to 700 million tweets a day, which provides as much as roughly 12 terabytes of knowledge each 24 hours.
That is an enormous danger if that knowledge falls into the flawed fingers, Arthur Herman, senior fellow on the Hudson Institute, recently wrote in Forbes – and Twitter had huge knowledge breaches earlier than all of that data grew to become Musk’s.
In July, a breach uncovered the e-mail tackle and cellphone variety of 5.4 million Twitter profiles. At the moment, Twitter recommended anyone trying to stay anonymous shouldn’t hyperlink a publicly recognized cellphone quantity or e mail to their Twitter account.
Then in August, whistleblower Peiter Zatko uncovered what he mentioned was lax security at Twitter, which may make the corporate’s knowledge susceptible to international infiltration in addition to improper use and storage of consumer knowledge.
Now all that knowledge – together with your direct messages as a result of they are not end-to-end encrypted – belongs to Elon Musk.
The info Twitter collects and saves contains your tweets, likes, direct messages, advert clicks, followers and people you’re following. For those who’ve granted entry, it might additionally accumulate data out of your cellphone’s contact listing.
For those who’re involved about your knowledge privateness or contemplating leaving Twitter, right here are some things you are able to do:
To delete your account go to Settings → Your Account → Deactivate Your Account. This is not going to delete your knowledge instantly as a result of Twitter holds onto your knowledge for at the least 30 days in case you alter your thoughts.
Earlier than deleting, you might wish to attempt just a few different options:
Again up your tweets by going to Settings → Your Account → Obtain an Archive of Your Knowledge.
You possibly can delete all of your previous tweets, however not by Twitter itself. Use a third-party app like Tweetdelete.net. It might additionally delete all of your previous likes. Twitter says deleted tweets are usually not publicly accessible but it surely’s unclear how lengthy they’re saved on the corporate’s servers.
For those who’ve used Twitter DMs for personal conversations you wish to take away, you possibly can delete a person message out of your account, however it’ll nonetheless exist for the opposite folks within the dialog.
Lock down your account utterly so solely your followers can see them:
Do that by going to Settings → Privateness and Security → Viewers and Tagging, then choose Shield Your Tweets. Or you possibly can keep public however shield your account from harassment by muting and blocking sure kinds of profiles.
Go to Settings → Privateness and Security → Mute and Block → Muted Notifications and you’ll select to mute, for instance, new accounts which could possibly be spam or bots.
Trump says Twitter now in ‘sane fingers’
Former president Donald Trump additionally weighed in on the Twitter deal Friday, saying in a publish on his personal social media platform, Reality Social, that he considers Musk’s takeover to have positioned the platform in “sane fingers.
Musk will probably be ‘digging in’ on shadow bans as hate speech, slurs seem
Experiences started surfacing early Friday that hate speech and racial epithets are flying on Twitter. Holocaust deniers have been additionally reported on the platform.
Twitter customers have been fast to notice Friday that they have been starting to see adjustments in the best way the platform labored and the way it was eradicating bans on customers beforehand restricted on the location, generally as a direct results of tweeting Musk.
In reply to that, Musk tweeted Friday that he’ll be “digging in” extra at the moment on lifting shadow bans and rolling again restrictions on customers.
Far-right commentators, together with well-known YouTuber Tim Pool, additionally weighed in about adjustments.
Customers who had both had their content material moderated or knew individuals who had encountered Twitter bans or shadow bans additionally tweeted Musk immediately asking to have these lifted and listed the names of individuals they felt ought to be introduced again to the platform.
When did Elon shut his deal for Twitter?
A number of information shops reported late Thursday that, after months of authorized wrangling and public acrimony, Musk had closed the deal and fired high executives together with the corporate’s CEO Parag Agrawal.
Twitter chairman Bret Taylor eliminated that title from his Twitter bio.
Musk might must pay as a lot as $200 million to fired executives
Agrawal; Ned Segal, the chief monetary officer; and Vijaya Gadde, the highest authorized and coverage government, all had strict contractual agreements in place for what would possibly occur within the occasion of a takeover.
MarketWatch stories that the three personal about $65 million price of Twitter inventory and get one other $119.6 million in inventory if they’re terminated.
“In whole, Gadde is ready to stroll away from Twitter with the most important haul: Almost $74 million. Agrawal and Segal aren’t far behind her, although, at roughly $65 million and $66 million, respectively,” MarketWatch mentioned.
Will Elon Musk fireplace extra Twitter staff?
Twitter’s earlier administration already deliberate to slash payroll by about $800 million and make deep cuts to infrastructure together with knowledge facilities by the top of 2023.
Experiences of extra austere measures beneath Musk – together with shedding 75% of the corporate’s 7,500 staff – circulated earlier than the deal closed. Musk instructed staff at Twitter’s headquarters on Wednesday “that he would not plan to chop 75 % of the employees when he takes over the corporate, in line with folks conversant in the matter,” Bloomberg wrote.
What did Elon Musk purchase Twitter for?
Musk wound up paying his unique bid value: $54.20 a share, or roughly $44 billion.
On the time of his April supply, the quantity represented a 33% premium to Twitter’s inventory value. However the firm has since been caught up in a wider drop in tech inventory costs, record-high inflation squeezing traders and growing fears of a recession.
Musk has been vocal about overpaying concerning the buy, though Twitter had closed at $53.70 on Thursday, a marked upswing from its lowest level of $32.65 in July.
“Though clearly myself and different traders are overpaying for Twitter proper now,” Musk just lately mentioned, “the long-term potential for Twitter is an order of magnitude increased than its present worth.”
Why does Elon Musk need Twitter?
The deal provides the Tesla billionaire management of one of many world’s strongest megaphones.
It additionally provides Musk entry to the information of almost 400 million customers and the power to convey again folks and organizations beforehand banned or sidelined by Twitter, together with former President Donald Trump
Who will run Twitter now?
For now, it seems Musk is helming Twitter.
On Wednesday he modified his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit” shortly earlier than strolling into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters carrying a porcelain sink, resurrecting a meme that has been web lore for years. “Let that sink in,” he tweeted.
Is Donald Trump coming again to Twitter?
Now that Elon Musk is working Twitter, the Tesla billionaire is more likely to reverse a everlasting ban towards Trump for inciting violence through the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
Musk has indicated he would enable Trump again on the social media platform the place the previous president had greater than 88 million followers.
“Could be nice to unwind everlasting bans, apart from spam accounts and people who explicitly advocate violence,” Musk texted Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal in April, in line with court docket filings.
At a convention in Might, Musk mentioned: “I do suppose it was not right to ban Donald Trump, I believe that was a mistake.”
Will Elon Musk’s buy of Twitter imply extra hate, extremism on-line?
When Elon Musk first agreed to purchase Twitter in April, he mentioned the social media web site has the potential to change into “the platform without spending a dime speech across the globe” and he would unlock it.
Musk, who closed the $44 billion deal after a months-long authorized combat, has described himself as a “free speech absolutist” and expressed concern over the best way Twitter moderates its customers.
Now that Musk owns Twitter, will he make good on his promise to loosen content material moderation guidelines within the identify of “free speech?”
Musk mentioned Thursday he doesn’t need the location to change into “a free-for-all hellscape the place something could be mentioned with no penalties” in a message to advertisers, who analysts have mentioned could also be scared off by the Tesla CEO’s stance on free speech.
“Along with adhering to the legal guidelines of the land, our platform have to be heat and welcoming to all, the place you possibly can select your required expertise in line with your preferences,” Musk mentioned in a observe posted on Twitter.
Critics have expressed concern that Musk would enable dangerous or extremist speech on the location and specialists have warned that loosening content material moderation may trigger real-world hurt.
Conservatives, in the meantime, have celebrated Musk’s Twitter takeover, as many accuse social media platforms of routinely censoring their voices, emotions additional fueled earlier this yr after former President Donald Trump was completely banned from Twitter.
Musk has indicated he would let Trump, who was banned for inciting violence through the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, again on the location.
How will advertisers reply to a Twitter with much less moderation?
Elon Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” has been advocating for much less content material moderation on Twitter since his plans to take over the corporate have been first introduced in April.
“We wish to have the notion and the fact that speech is as free as attainable,” Musk mentioned in April on the TED2022 convention. “Is somebody you do not like allowed to say one thing you do not like? And if that’s the case, then we’ve got free speech.”
The concept appears to harken again to the early days of Twitter; former CEO Dick Costolo known as the location the “free-speech wing of the free-speech celebration” within the early 2010s.
Since then, Twitter has adopted stricter insurance policies to fight disinformation, misinformation and hate speech. The platform’s guidelines prohibit focused harassment, COVID-19 misinformation and election manipulation.
Musk’s discuss softening a few of Twitter’s guidelines to any speech has raised crimson flags for advertisers.
Shortly after the Wall Avenue Journal launched a report about Madison Avenue’s considerations, Musk issued an announcement on Twitter saying the social media platform “clearly can’t change into a free-for-all-hellscape, the place something could be mentioned with no penalties.”
Musk’s tweet was addressed to advertisers, the corporate’s main income.
“Social networks try to do a greater job eradicating hateful content material, content material that’s antisemitic, content material that’s blatantly misinformation,” mentioned Ari Lightman, professor of digital media and advertising at Carnegie Mellon College. “That’s one thing that advertisers fear about.”
