One Year Since Twitter Takeover: 5 Big Changes Elon Musk Introduced After The $44 Billion Deal

Today marks the completion of exactly one year since the world＊s richest person, Elon Musk, bought Twitter for $44 billion on October 27, 2022.

Since then, the billionaire has made a lot of changes on the social networking platform, with most of these changes putting Elon Musk on the receiving end of criticism. Call it good or bad, but the changes just keep on coming again and again in the world＊s richest person＊s quest to make X a super app.

5 Big Changes Twitter Saw In The Last Year

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1.Mass Layoffs

From firing former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to laying off about 80% of the workforce in multiple layoff rounds, Twitter (now X) under Elon Musk is barely left with 1,500 employees at present, vs. around 7,500 that were there when Elon Musk bought the Jack Dorsey-founded company.

2.Saying Goodbye To Bird Logo & Name

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In July of this year, Elon Musk made one of the most visible changes to Twitter by replacing its iconic bird logo.

In a tweet, Musk said that ※soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.§ The bird logo has been replaced with the logo X. ※X§ is a term for what Musk has described as an ※everything app§ that could combine social media, instant messaging, and payment services, akin to the popular Chinese app WeChat.

Elon Musk went on to explain why he decided to rebrand Twitter to X and noted that it＊s more than just a name change. Instead, it represents his plans to create an ※everything app.§

※Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing. The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140 character messages going back and forth 每 like birds tweeting 每 but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video. In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird.§

Also Read: Elon Musk Briefly Changes Twitter's Bird Logo To Doge Meme

3. Shifting Away From Ads

One of the major agendas in Musk＊s plan for Twitter (now called X) was to shift away from advertising and towards paid subscriptions. A new analysis from independent researcher Travis Brown estimates that 950,000 to 1.2 million people now pay for X＊s $8 monthly premium service. That means X persuaded less than 1% of users to sign up, which translates to revenue of less than $120 million annually from the company＊s subscription service, not including app store fees from Apple and Google, as per the Bloomberg report.

This has hardly been a replacement for the ad revenue that Twitter relied on in the pre-Musk era〞about $4.5 billion in its last full year as a public company. Collectively, X＊s top five advertisers are believed to be spending 67% less on ads than they did before the $44 billion acquisition.

4. Taking Twitter Private

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As part of his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Elon Musk delisted the company＊s stock, taking it out of the hands of public shareholders. As per a New York Times report, making Twitter a private company has given Musk some advantages.

For instance, unlike publicly traded companies, privately held firms do not have to make quarterly public disclosures about their performance. They are also subject to less regulatory scrutiny and can be more tightly controlled by the owner. That means Musk can even make a total Twitter makeover〞including tweaking the platform＊s content rules, its finances, and its priorities〞without having to consider the worries of the investing public. Well, perhaps Musk did so in the last year, right?

5. Merging Twitter With X

Another big change by Elon Musk at Twitter came in April this year, when it was announced that it has merged with everything app called 'X', owned by Elon Musk. In a court filing in the US, Twitter quietly disclosed that it no longer exists.

"Twitter Inc. has been merged into X Corp. and no longer exists. X Corp. is a privately held corporation, incorporated in Nevada, and with its principal place of business in San Francisco, California," the filing had mentioned.

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