Has Elon Musk killed Twitter?

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Since purchasing Twitter in October last year for the eye watering sum of 44 billion dollars, Elon Musk has fired over 80% of the Twitter workforce, rebranded the company to X, lost over 50% of the ad revenue and promoted headlines such as “Elon Musk Really Broke Twitter This Time” (The Atlantic) ,“Elon Musk’s Twitter is dying a slow and tedious death” (Financial Times) or “Musk is nearly done destroying what made Twitter Twitter” (The Washington Post).

But is X really dying? And did Musk kill Twitter? Even when ignoring the disappearance of the iconic bird, changes to X have been significant in the past year.

Changes to the verification system with the launch of Twitter Blue, a subscription service that gives users a blue verification checkmark. In May 2023 Musk has announced that Twitter would no longer verify accounts based on their public interest.
Layoffs and staff turnover. In April 2023, Musk has stated that 80% of the workforce since he took over has been fired. He has also seen a high rate of staff turnover, as many employees have left the company due to Musk’s controversial policies and management style
Relaxed content moderation policies, in an attempt to make X a more open and free platform.
Increased focus on algorithmic transparency. Musk has said that he wants to make Twitter’s algorithms more transparent. In February 2023, Twitter launched a new tool that allows users to see how their tweets are being ranked in the algorithm.
Changes to the API. Musk has also made changes to Twitter’s API, which is used by third-party developers to create apps and services that interact with Twitter. These changes have made it more difficult for developers to build and maintain Twitter apps.
Increased promotion of Musk’s other businesses. Musk has used Twitter to promote his other businesses, such as Tesla and SpaceX. This has led to accusations that Musk is using Twitter to benefit his own interests.

The results have been easy to predict.

Decline in user satisfaction. Many users are unhappy with Musk’s changes to the platform, such as the relaxed content moderation policies and the increased promotion of Musk’s other businesses.
Increase in hate speech. According to a study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the amount of hate speech on Twitter has increased by 50% since Musk acquired the platform.
Decline in number of active users. According to Statista, the number of active users on Twitter has been steadily declining since Musk acquired the platform in October 2022. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Twitter had 217 million active users. In the first quarter of 2023, that number had fallen to 211 million.
Increased misinformation. According to a study by Stanford University, the amount of misinformation on Twitter has increased by 25% since Musk acquired the platform.
Drop in ad revenue. According to Elon Musk himself, Twitter has lost roughly half of its advertising revenue since he bought the company in October 2022.

Yet, the layoffs and others cost savings cuts made by Musk have saved the company billions of dollars. According to a report in the Financial Times, Elon Musk has cut $4.5 billion in costs at Twitter as of October 2023. Simultaneously, Twitter lost “only” $2.23 Billion in Ad revenue since Musk takeover. In a grand scheme of things, the company might actually for the better with the changes. Obviously we cannot simply discount the increased number of misinformation, hate speech and drop in user satisfaction and user numbers – in the long term those might prove to be the undoing of X – but it would be naive to think that nor Musk, nor any of his advisors weren’t expecting those effects when firing 80% of the workforce. It seems that X can only improve in those areas now, which in turn, will attract the return of more advertisers.

It’s also important to note, that Musk didn’t exactly buy Twitter for Twitter. He bought it for the hundreds of millions of users in an attempt to create the “everything app”, as he tweeted even before acquiring the social media giant. With a project of such scale, drastic changes were to be expected.

While, it is still too early to say what the long-term impact of Musk’s ownership of X will be, if one were to anthropomorphize X, one could expect it to quote Mark Twain and state “The report of my death was an exaggeration”.

Musk has killed Twitter in a shape that we knew, yet X might be here to stay.

By Szymon Olszewski

Sources:

https://bard.google.com/chat

Prompts used:

Did Elon Musk kill twitter? Provide statistical data to back up your claim.
How did Twitter change since Elon Musk bought the company in October 2022? Provide 10 examples.
How much costs have Musk cut since he bought Twitter. Provide exact numbers with sources.
How much total cost cuts have been made by Musk to Twitter as of October 2023. Provide sources.
How much advertising revenue has Twitter lost as of October 2023, since Musk bought Twitter. Use Financial Times and provide the title of your source article.