Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and Space X, accepted that the agreement to buy Twitter was costly (Forbes estimates his fortune at $236.9 bn). He did, however, state that he was a fan of the social network and that he took it because "it's moving in a negative direction,” reports Business Insider.
Musk stated that Twitter had a "negative effect on civilization" and a "destructive effect on civil society" prior to his arrival to Twitter. "And everything that undermines civilization, I think, is not good," the billionaire concluded at a technology conference in Paris on June 16.
Musk claims that the social network has been "substantially cleaned up" since he took it. "We eliminated 90% of bots, scammers, and other bad things that occur. We removed 95% of child exploitation content from Twitter, which was a surprise," he pointed out.
Musk completed the $44 bn purchase of Twitter and took leadership of the social network last October in 2022. Following that, he initiated extensive changes in the company, including personnel reductions, revisions to the account blocking policy, the beginning of monetization, and the sale of checkmarks for page verification. He described his first few months at the organisation as stressful. His fortune dropped by $ 17 bn only after news of layoffs became public.
Musk's policies at Twitter have been extensively criticised, and an outflow of advertisers has resulted. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg criticised the social network for incorrectly labelling items, including insults by former President Donald Trump.
Musk chose to stand down as CEO of Twitter in May 2023. Instead of himself, he selected Linda Iaccorino, former NBCUniversal chief of sales, to this post. According to The Wall Street Journal, her major duty will be to return to the advertising social network. As reports show, their departure led Twitter's sales and adjusted profit to decrease 40% year on year in December 2022.
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