Elon Musk’s much-publicized Twitter Spaces kickoff event, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announcing his run for president, struggled with technical glitches and a near half-hour delay Wednesday. The billionaire Twitter owner said the problems were due to “straining” servers because so many people were trying to listen to the audio-only event. But even at their highest, the number of listeners listed topped out at around 420,000, far from the millions of viewers that televised presidential announcements attract.
“I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!” Musk wrote in a Friday tweet. He added that Yaccarino “will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology.” Luring advertisers is critical for Musk and Twitter after many fled in the early months after his takeover of the social media platform, fearing harm to their brands in the ensuing chaos. Musk said in late April that advertisers had returned, but provided no details. Pictured: Musk with Yaccarino, chairman of global advertising and partnerships for NBC, at a marketing conference in Miami Beach on April 18.
Elon Musk threatened to reassign NPR’s Twitter account to “another company,” according to the nonprofit news organization, in an ongoing spat between Musk and media groups since his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last year. “So is NPR going to start posting on Twitter again, or should we reassign @NPR to another company?” Musk wrote in one email late Tuesday to NPR reporter Bobby Allyn.
PBS has not tweeted from its main Twitter handle since April 8, following Elon Musk’s decision to label the outlet “government-funded news.” PBS joins NPR, another major editorially independent outlet that receives some government funding, in halting its Twitter activity in light of the new label.
Exclusives
Beyond Ordinary Events Inc. and Possible today announced new additions to the speaker lineup. Elon Musk, CEO, Twitter and Linda Yaccarino, chairman of global advertising and partnerships, NBCUniversal, will join forces on stage in a keynote entitled: “Twitter 2.0: From Conversations to Partnerships.” The session is a conversation between Yaccarino and Musk discussing Twitter 2.0 and what […]
JESSELL AT LARGE
Memo To Musk: Hire A Publisher And Editor For Twitter
Elon Musk can reverse his early fumble at Twitter’s helm by hiring an old-fashioned publisher, who in turn should hire an experienced editor, to lead. The platform badly needs their application of well-honed journalistic values to climb out of the mire.
Elon Musk suspended reporters from Twitter and later reinstated them, but with a catch: They must nix their tweets related to the account @ElonJet, which has tracked Musk’s private plane using public data.
Musk’s announcement came after millions of Twitter users him asked to step down in an unscientific poll the billionaire himself created and promised to abide by. “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” Musk tweeted. “After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”
Elon Musk asked Twitter users Sunday if he should step down as head of the social media site. More than 17 million votes were cast and delivered a clear verdict: 57.5% said he should quit, in a Twitter “poll” that closed after 12 hours on Monday. Musk had said he would abide by the results of the vote. After voting ended, there was no immediate response from Musk on Twitter.
Yesterday, Elon Musk launched a new 12-hour poll asking if he should step down as head of Twitter. “I will abide by the results of this poll.” The action came after acknowledging he made a mistake Sunday in launching new speech restrictions that banned mentions of rival social media websites. The move to block competitors was Musk’s latest attempt to crack down on certain speech after he shut down a Twitter account last week that was tracking the flights of his private jet.
NBC News has temporarily removed journalist Ben Collins, who covers disinformation and extremism and their intersection with digital venues, from regular reporting on Twitter and Elon Musk according to a person familiar with the matter, citing remarks on social media that the NBCUniversal news organization felt were not consistent with its editorial standards. NBC News declined to make executives available for comment.
Twitter on Thursday evening suddenly suspended several high-profile journalists who cover the platform and Musk.
The new controls are part of Twitter’s effort to reassure and lure back advertisers that have pulled ads off the platform since it was purchased in October by billionaire Elon Musk, amid reports from civil rights groups that hate speech has risen since the acquisition and after several banned or suspended accounts were reinstated.
In the month after Elon Musk bought Twitter, the microblogging platform’s decentralized rival social network Mastodon not only received widespread coverage from the media, but saw traffic explode
Elon Musk reinstated former President Donald Trump’s account on Twitter Saturday, reversing a ban that had kept Trump off the social media site for more than 22 months — since a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was poised to certify President Biden’s election victory. Musk made the announcement after holding a poll that asked Twitter users to click “yes” or “no” on whether Trump’s account should be reinstated. The “yes” vote won, with 51.8%.
A list of things that journalism will lose, and ways that it will change, if Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter leads to its shutdown.
The drama surrounding Elon Musk’s chaotic reign of Twitter kicked up a notch on Thursday night, as reports filtered out of an exodus of key staff at the company leading to genuine fears over the future viability of the platform.
Early on Tuesday, Musk’s team ordered nearly two dozen Twitter employees who had pushed back publicly and privately against him to be fired, three people with knowledge of the matter said. The billionaire, who completed a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last month, later confirmed the exits on the platform and mocked the former employees.
Workers who survived last week’s mass layoffs are facing harsher work conditions and growing uncertainty about their ability to keep Twitter running safely as it continues to lose high-level leaders responsible for data privacy, cybersecurity and complying with regulations. The FTC said in a statement Thursday that it is “tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern. No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees,” said the agency’s statement. “Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”
Elon Musk tweeted Sunday that Twitter will permanently suspend any account on the social media platform that impersonates another. The platform’s new owner issued the warning after some celebrities changed their Twitter display names — not their account names — and tweeted as ‘Elon Musk’ in reaction to the billionaire’s decision to offer verified accounts to all comers for $8 month as he simultaneously laid off a big chunk of the workforce.
The San Francisco-based company told workers by email Thursday that they would learn Friday if they had been laid off. About half of the company’s staff of 7,500 was let go, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety & integrity, confirmed in a tweet. The speed and size of the cuts also opened Musk and Twitter to lawsuits. At least one was filed alleging Twitter violated federal law by not providing fired employees the required notice.
Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner, acknowledged that ad spending on the platform had slumped. He blamed the drop on pressure from activists.
Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner, fired the company’s board of directors and made himself the board’s sole member, according to a company filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He’s also testing the waters on asking users to pay for verification. A venture capitalist working with Musk tweeted a poll asking how much users would be willing to pay for the blue check mark that Twitter has historically used to verify higher-profile accounts so other users know it’s really them.
Elon Musk’s buyout of Twitter promises to supercharge the battle over content moderation, which is likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court
Elon Musk sought to reassure jittery advertisers that he has no plans to make Twitter a “free-for-all hellscape,” as Madison Avenue is reportedly uneasy about his plans to loosen content moderation rules once he takes control of the social network.
Silicon Valley moguls used to buy yachts and islands. Now they are rich enough, and perhaps arrogant enough, to acquire companies they fancy.
Two people familiar with the deal said Thursday night said that Elon Musk is in charge of the social media platform and has fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and General Counsel Vijaya Gadde.
For a second time, Musk offered to buy the San Francisco company at $54.20. Twitter’s stock jumped nearly 13% to $47.93 Tuesday before trading stopped on the New York Stock Exchange, which listed “news pending” as the reason for the halt.
Twitter investors backed Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover that the billionaire is trying to abandon on the day a whistleblower who leveled charges of widespread security failures at the social-media company testified at a Senate hearing Tuesday. Former Twitter security executive Peiter Zatko, who was fired by the company in January, told the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday that Twitter executives’ “incentives led them to prioritize profits over security,” echoing his whistleblower complaint.
T-Mobile will partner with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and use the company’s Starlink satellites to provide mobile networks for cellphone users in remote areas, both companies announced at an event on Thursday.
Musk disclosed in series of regulatory filings that he unloaded about 8 million shares of his company Tesla Inc. in recent days. “In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” Musk tweeted late Tuesday.
Twitter had asked for an expedited trial in September, while Musk’s team called for waiting until early next year because of the complexity of the case. Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, the head judge of Delaware’s Court of Chancery, which handles many high-profile business disputes. said Musk’s team underestimated the Delaware court’s ability to “quickly process complex litigation.”
