🐦😮 Elon Making Major Changes to Twitter
Hello all!
Hope you are having a fabulous Wednesday. Twitter was officially acquired for $44B and Elon Musk made some major changes. This week, we brief you on some of the changes he’s already made as well as the changes he’s discussed making that may affect your Twitter experience very soon (like possibly next week).
I’ve been posting more short-form content on Tik Tok, IG Reels, and trying to keep up with YouTube videos as well. I’m also brainstorming ways to create more written materials for you guys to enjoy - so I’ll keep you updated on that.
Last weekend I was able to get some golf in at Half Moon Bay, and here’s a picture from the 18th hole at the Ocean Course. The same hotel where American Wedding, the movie was filmed. It’s a beautiful place and the round was about $125.
Let me know what you guys have planned this coming weekend - email me back or comment.
Enjoy this week’s edition!
- Humphrey, Rickie & Tim
Featured Story
Elon Musk is no stranger to pushing the envelope and in the short time since he officially acquired Twitter on October 27, he’s already made massive changes to the company’s executive board and publicly brainstormed new changes on the platform itself.
Twitter was purchased for $44B at $54.20/share, the original terms of the deal, and almost immediately after news surrounding the finalized deal came out, Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Twitter’s top legal and policy executive. Within the terms of the deal, Musk wiped the board clean of the former nine executive directors and named himself the sole director, or as he calls it: Chief Twit according to his Twitter bio (which has now been changed to Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator).
Earlier this year, Musk told prospective partners in the deal that he planned to cut nearly 75% of Twitter’s workforce, leaving the company with ~2,000 employees. While Musk later clarified with Twitter employees during his HQ visit last week that he didn’t plan to cut three-fourths of the workforce, he was in meetings last weekend deciding on what is expected to be the first round of layoffs. Sales, product, engineering, legal, and trust & safety are all expected to be impacted by the layoffs, with particular attention to the sales department where some of Twitter’s highest-paid employees (after engineers) earn more than $300,000 a year.
A major criticism of Musk towards Twitter was the way it conducted content moderation; he famously disagreed with Donald Trump being removed from the platform. Musk tweeted on Friday that Twitter would be “forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints,” adding that “No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.” The lack of content moderation that Musk is pushing for has advertisers, politicians, and users concerned as they would prefer a more moderated platform. Musk reached out to the big advertisers on Thursday to assuage them.
The eccentric Tesla founder also suggested that he was interested in bringing back Vine, the six-second social video app that Twitter gave up on six years ago. The Twitter poll tweeted to his 113M followers garnered almost 5M votes with ~70% voting in favor of bringing back the video platform.
Lastly, Musk plans to revamp the verification system and involve a monthly fee for users to stay verified. According to a report from The Verge, the company is looking to introduce a new and more expensive version of Twitter Blue that will cost $8 per month and give its users a verified badge. Noted in the report was that Twitter is rushing to launch the plan by November 7th and that the social network is planning to remove verification badges from current holders if they don’t pay for Twitter Blue within 90 days.
These are some of the highlights from the many, many changes that Musk and his team have put or plan on putting in motion. As always, we’ll stay on top of new developments and will continue to brief you on the big stories every Wednesday and Sunday.
Weekly News Roundup
Members of Elon Musk’s inner circle met with Twitter’s remaining executives to conduct detailed discussions regarding the site’s approach to content moderation and spam, as well as plans to lay off 25% of the workforce (more than 7,000 people) to start. Layoffs are expected to touch all departments and are expected to specifically impact sales, product, and engineering in the coming days. According to documents viewed by the post, some of Twitter’s highest-paid employees work in sales, where several earn more than $300,000.
U.S. Oil Production Nears 12M Barrels/Day, at Pre-Pandemic High (Reuters)
Government figures showed on Monday that U.S. oil output climbed to nearly 12M barrels per day (bpd) in August, the highest level since the onset of the pandemic. U.S. output peaked at 13M bps in late 2019 and has not returned to that level since the pandemic started as rigs have been shut down and costs for equipment and labor increased rapidly. President Biden has called on oil companies to boost production to reduce fuel prices.
Moscow suspended its participation in the UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative which reopened Ukrainian ports for agricultural product export. Russia’s Ministry of Defense cited retaliation for Kyiv’s “act of terrorism” against Russian warships, claiming that Ukrainian armed forces launched “massive air and sea strikes using unmanned aerial vehicles against ships and infrastructure [in Sevastopol]." Since the deal was settled in July, a total of 9M metric tons have departed Ukraine’s ports en route to 40 other countries.
Chart of the Week
