Is Elon Musk stepping down from Twitter?
AFTER less than two months at the helm of Twitter, Elon Musk started having second thoughts about the platform he paid $44billion for.
In December 2022, the sole executive and owner of the platform asked users in a poll if he should step down as CEO and his latest announcement stems from results he received months ago.
"My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops."
The identity of Twitter's new officer has yet to be revealed.
Is Elon Musk in charge of Twitter?
Elon Musk is still currently in charge of Twitter.
Elon made good on his offer to buy Twitter on October 27, 2022, adding it to his other companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink.
On October 31, 2022, Musk dissolved the entire Twitter board and made himself the "sole director," according to reports.
The news followed his bio change to "Chief twit" after he acquired the company.
However, The Washington Post reported Musk plans to lay off 25 percent of the workforce initially, amounting to about 7k people, which will be led by his long-term lawyer, Alex Spiro.
In addition to laying off Twitter's top executives, Musk has dismissed the company's board of directors.
At the time, Musk commented on his takeover of the CEO position in a post on Twitter, writing the move was "just temporary."
What has changed on Twitter since Musk took over?
Musk bought the social media platform on October 27, 2022, and less than a week later, he released a statement on Twitter to convey his reason for acquiring the company.
"There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising. Most of it has been wrong," he wrote.
"The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence."
"There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right-wing and far left-wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society."
He continues to criticize: "Traditional media" and claims the "relentless pursuit of clicks" continues to polarize Twitter users negatively.
He said: "That is why I bought Twitter. I didn't do it because it would be easy."
"I didn't do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love."
Since taking over Twitter, Elon has suspended several journalists who seemed to criticize him, which has taken away from his credibility in cleaning up the politics of the site.
It has also diminished his credibility in stabilizing the first amendment on Twitter.
Elon's first big announcement was that users would now be able to purchase verification, which was previously based on merit.
He also re-instated several big-name accounts, including former President Donald Trump's.
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Elon has announced one major policy shift: users on the platform are not allowed to share other users' personal information (in an attempt to dox them).
This change also means that live location updates are no longer available on the app.