Elon Musk, the rabble-rousing tech billionaire, has drawn significant attention since his tumultuous takeover of Twitter last year.
From embarrassing glitches and massive layoffs, the platform has seemingly been sculpted at Musk鈥檚 own whim. On Monday came another development as Musk revealed a new black and white 鈥淴鈥 logo to replace Twitter鈥檚 iconic blue bird.
With more changes likely still to come amid this major company rebrand, here鈥檚 a look back at Musk鈥檚 time with Twitter and some of the newsworthy events that have occurred under his watch.
Jan. 31, 2022: Musk begins to buy Twitter shares in near-daily installments, reaching a five-per-cent stake in the company by mid-March.
March 26, 2022: Musk, who has millions of Twitter followers, says he is giving 鈥渟erious thought鈥 to building an alternative to the social media platform after questioning Twitter鈥檚 commitment to 鈥渇ree speech.鈥 He also privately reaches out to Twitter board members, including his friend and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
April 5, 2022: Musk is offered a seat on Twitter鈥檚 board on the condition he amass no more than 14.9 per cent of the company鈥檚 stock. The now former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in a tweet that 鈥渋t became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board.鈥
April 11, 2022: Agrawal announces Musk will not be joining the board after all. The new revelations come after relations soured between Musk and Agrawal. Days earlier, Musk publicly tweeted, 鈥淚s Twitter dying?鈥 and received a message from Agrawal calling the criticism unhelpful. The Tesla owner then said: 鈥淭his is a waste of time. Will make an offer to take Twitter private.鈥
April 25, 2022: Musk reaches a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion and take the company private. Twitter, one of the world鈥檚 most popular social media sites, was originally created in 2006.
June 6, 2022: Musk threatens to end his $44 billion agreement to buy Twitter, accusing the company of refusing to give him information he requested about its spam bot accounts. A month later, Twitter , before Musk files a countersuit.
Oct. 5, 2022: After months of legal battles, Musk offers to go through with his $44-billion offer to buy Twitter. Twitter says it intends to close the transaction after receiving Musk鈥檚 offer.
Oct. 27, 2022: Musk takes control of Twitter and ousts Agrawal along with other top executives. He , 鈥渢he bird is freed.鈥 In a message to advertisers, he says Twitter
Nov. 4, 2022: Around the world, Twitter employees begin to receive messages indicating they have been laid off. People with knowledge of the matter said Musk planned to eliminate half of Twitter鈥檚 workforce of some 7,500 employees. In Canada, two senior leaders announce they are part of the cuts. The layoffs raise concerns about the platform鈥檚 stability and ability to fight misinformation ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.
Nov. 5, 2022: Twitter begins to roll out Twitter Blue, its monthly subscription service that allows paying users to receive a blue verification check mark, previously only reserved for notable individuals, groups and organizations. In Canada, Twitter Blue currently costs $15 per month on the Apple app store.
Nov. 19, 2022: Musk reinstates Donald Trump鈥檚 account on Twitter, reversing a ban that kept the former president off the social media site since a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was poised to certify Joe Biden鈥檚 election victory. Musk made the announcement after holding a poll that asked Twitter users to click 鈥測es鈥 or 鈥渘o鈥 on whether Trump鈥檚 account should be restored. The 鈥測es鈥 vote won with 51.8 per cent.
Nov. 23, 2022: Twitter quietly shelves its COVID-19 misleading information policy, which required users to remove tweets that included statements intended to influence others to violate COVID guidance from global or local health authorities, misleading information about unfounded treatments for the virus, and false or misleading information about diagnoses, among others. Experts in misinformation and science communication criticize the move, saying it will further silo users and lead to more disinformation.
Feb. 25, 2023: In a fresh wave of layoffs, Twitter cuts dozens of positions in its engineering and product teams. Some workers tweet that they learned they were terminated when they could no longer log in to the internal system.
April 12, 2023: The National Public Radio becomes one of the first major news organizations to leave Twitter, a week after the social media platform labelled the American media organization as 鈥渟tate-affiliated media,鈥 a term used in the past to describe government-run, propaganda outlets, such as those in China, Russia and other authoritarian nations.
April 20, 2023: After , Twitter follows through on its promise to remove verficiation check marks from users who do not subscribe to Twitter Blue. The platform had roughly 300,000 verified users under the original verification system 鈥 many of them journalists, athletes and public figures.
May 24, 2023: Florida governor Ron DeSantis鈥檚 presidential campaign gets off to a shaky start after his Twitter livestream, where he was to announce his entrance in the race, became riddled with technical issues. The Twitter space, hosted by DeSantis, Musk and entrepreneur David Sacks, regularly cut out and ejected users, with multiple attendees reporting the livecast had crashed their whole phones.
June 21, 2023: Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg agree to a cage fight. The online repartee comes amid reports Meta is developing a new platform to challenge Twitter.
July 1, 2023: Musk announces Twitter will temporarily limit the number of tweets users can read daily, in an attempt to prevent unauthorized from the social media platform.
July 5, 2023: Twitter threatens legal action against Threads, Meta鈥檚 new text-based platform that aims to rival Twitter. Alex Spiro, an attorney representing Twitter, accuses Meta of unlawfully using Twitter鈥檚 trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a 鈥渃opycat鈥 app.
July 24, 2023: Musk unveils a new black and white 鈥淴鈥 logo to replace Twitter鈥檚 famous blue bird as he follows through with a major rebranding of the social media platform. The X started appearing on the top of Twitter鈥檚 desktop version Monday, while the bird was still dominant across the phone app.
With files from Kevin Jiang, Alessia Passafiume, The Associated Press and Bloomberg
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