What is going to Elon Musk’s Twitter appear to be?

After months of controversy, Elon Musk is now on the head of probably the most influential social networks on the planet, whose “super potential” he has promised to unleash.

What modifications can we anticipate for the platform from the multi-billionaire chief govt of Tesla and founding father of SpaceX?

New boss

One among Musk’s first choices was to sack Twitter chief govt Parag Agrawal, chief monetary officer Ned Segal and head of authorized affairs Vijaya Gadde, in response to a number of US media retailers.

The billionaire entrepreneur must discover replacements for them.

“Musk is within the unenviable place of convincing seasoned executives to work for him at a platform that he has publicly disparaged,” stated Jasmine Enberg, an analyst for Insider Intelligence.

In response to Bloomberg, Musk will assume the function of CEO of Twitter, at the very least initially.

He’ll need to cope with involved workers. Musk desires to chop the workforce by 75 % (or about 5,500 workers), in response to the Washington Publish.

“The temper at Twitter is tense, with workers anxious about layoffs,” stated Enberg. “Product and even engineering groups might face a shakeup.”

Freedom of speech

A self-described “free speech absolutist,” Musk stated on Thursday that he desires to show Twitter right into a platform that’s “heat and welcoming to all” and never a “free-for-all hellscape.”

He has criticized what he sees as aggressive content material moderation, which he contends leads to the censorship of proper and far-right voices.

“Consultants we have spoken with have urged round 600 folks at Twitter itself and hundreds extra with third-party affiliations have labored on platform content material moderation,” stated Scott Kessler of Third Bridge.

“Musk has publicly advocated for these actions to be pushed by algorithms as a substitute of individuals,” he added.

The Tesla boss additional hinted that former US president Donald Trump, who was suspended from the platform after the assault on Capitol Hill in early 2021, is likely to be allowed to return.

Trump wrote on Friday on his personal social community Fact Social that Twitter is “in good palms.”

One among Musk’s different pet peeves is the problem of faux accounts. He threatened to stroll away from the deal over the inauthentic or “bot” accounts however has not revealed what he’ll do to battle them.

‘Unpalatable to advertisers’

One other problem for Elon Musk is to enhance the monetary well being of Twitter, which faces sluggish development, even recording a web loss within the second quarter.

In April, Musk talked about choices to generate extra income: boosting paid subscriptions, monetizing the dissemination of in style tweets or paying content material creators.

In a letter printed Thursday, the entrepreneur referred to as on Twitter advertisers to work collectively to “construct one thing extraordinary,” stressing the significance of welcoming a large variety of opinions on the platform.

“Mr. Musk has indicated in his newest publicity stunt that he desires to throw the kitchen sink at Twitter to draw new customers,” famous Susannah Streeter, senior funding and market analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

“However he’s going to face an enormous problem of sustaining and constructing income, on condition that the controversial opinions he seems to need to give extra of a free rein to on this ‘world city corridor’ are sometimes unpalatable to advertisers,” she stated.

Some civic teams are additionally calling on main manufacturers to make use of their affect to stop Musk from offering a platform for essentially the most radical speech.

“Contemplating that advertisements reportedly account for 90 % of Twitter’s income, it’s clear that the facility to carry Musk accountable, if he rolls again the platform’s protections in opposition to harassment, abuse and disinformation, lies within the palms of Twitter’s high advertisers,” Media Issues for America, a nonprofit watchdog group, argued.

© 2022 AFP