Six Months Since Twitter Takeover: 10 Times Elon Musk Has Gone Back On His Own Words

Today marks the completion of half an year since Elon Musk took over Twitter. On 28th October 2022, the billionaire finally acquired Twitter for a mammoth $44 billion. In the months that preceded as well as those that followed after the takeover, had one thing in common, the sheer regularity with which Elon Musk says one thing and proceeds to do the complete opposite.

Not once or twice, the billionaire has taken U-turns from his own words and decisions multiple times.

So lets bring to you some of the instances wherein Twitter CEO Musk said one thing and then went on to do its opposite.

1. U-turn on blue checks

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Elon Musk¡¯s vision for Twitter Blue has taken many lots of twists and turns. In March 2023 he had announced that only accounts that subscribe to Twitter Blue would appear in Twitter¡¯s main timeline, known as the 'For You' page. But just a few days later he backtracked, saying he ¡°forgot to mention¡± non-paying users¡¯ tweets would appear as well.

Then on April 20th, the blue checkmarks of ¡°legacy¡± verified accounts predating Musk¡¯s tenure at Twitter disappeared, but then began reappearing on the accounts of several celebrities who had publicly stated they would never pay for the service, including LeBron James and William Shatner. Musk then tweeted that he was paying for several celebrities¡¯ blue checkmarks personally.

2. The chaos around media labelling

Twitter CEO Musk received pushback from many prominent media organizations including NPR, PBS and the BBC after affixing ¡°state-funded media¡± labels to their accounts without warning.

NPR said it was leaving the platform due to the misleading label. But Musk later took a U-turn and removed the labels. He also removed similar labels affixed to Russian state propaganda outfit RT, and China Daily, which is affiliated to the Chinese Communist Party.

3. 'Fake' concern for AI safety

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In March 2023, Elon Musk had signed an open letter warning of the severe risks of companies racing toward building ever-more powerful AIs. The letter called for a six month pause on training new AIs above a certain power threshold, as per TIMES report. The letter also argued that companies were in an ¡°out-of-control race¡± to beat one another.

Then some days later, it was reported that Musk was himself preparing to build his own powerful large language model AI system at Twitter, and had invested millions in computing power and recruiting engineers for the task.

Also Read: From Mass Layoffs To Merger-What Went Wrong At Twitter

4. No glimpse of content moderation council

Shortly after acquiring Twitter, Musk said he would establish a ¡°content moderation council¡± to advise him on controversial decisions. But the council, even till date, has never established. Under Musk, Twitter has also removed bans on dozens of accounts including Neo-Nazis, and disbanded the platform¡¯s already-existing Trust and Safety Council, which consisted of civil society groups.

5. Suspension of ElonJet

In November last year, Elon Musk had tweeted that he would not ban an account that monitored the movements of his Gulfstream G700 private jet in real time. The account would often post tweets revealing short flights¡ªthe 40 miles from San Jose to San Francisco. But the next month itself, Musk banned the account, claiming it had violated Twitter¡¯s doxxing policy.

6. Support for free speech

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Even before his acquisition of Twitter, Musk had said that he would like to allow all legal speech to remain on the platform. ¡°I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,¡± he tweeted in April, as per the report.

Then later by December, he had suspended at least nine prominent journalists from the platform, ostensibly for retweeting or publicizing ElonJet¡¯s tweets about the location of his private jet. The journalists¡¯ accounts were later reinstated.

Also, at around the same time, the Twitter account of rival social network Mastodon was suspended from the platform, and links to Mastodon servers were prevented from being posted on Twitter. The platform later reportedly reversed course on those decisions.

Also Read: Ex Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal Sues Twitter For Not Paying Over $1 Million Pending Dues

7. Not stepping down as CEO

In late December last year, Elon Musk asked users whether he should step down as head of Twitter, vowing to ¡°abide by the results¡± of the poll. Twitter users voted Musk out through the poll, but he has declined to step down for now, saying that he doesn¡¯t believe anyone else is foolish enough to run the company.

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

Musk has also tweeted that he plan to find a new CEO for Twitter by the end of this year.

8. Defeating spam

Musk overhauled Twitter¡¯s verification program, whose blue checkmark was formerly a signal that a public figure¡¯s account was owned by who it was claiming to be.

Musk went on to replace that invite-only system with Twitter Blue, an $8 per month subscription accessible to anybody. The billionaire said the change would be ¡°essential to defeat spam.¡± But soon, some users began paying for verification in order to impersonate the accounts of famous brands.

Even brands that had spent big on advertising on Twitter began exiting the platform, concerned about the risk of impersonation.

9. Not Taking Major Decisions Through Poll

After Elon Musk drew backlash for banning links to other social media platforms, he promised ¡°Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won¡¯t happen again.¡± But since then, the Twitter CEO has implemented many major policy changes without taking any feedback or voting from users.

10. Not Giving Promised Severance Pay

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Elon Musk had boasted about offering laid-off employees three months of severance, which he said was more than what was legally required of the company. However, it's been several months since he took over and conducted multiple layoff rounds that have affected nearly 70% of Twitter's workforce, but many employees claim that they have reportedly only been offered one month of pay in exchange for agreeing to various terms and conditions.

Also Read: Steve Davis Likely To Replace Elon Musk As Twitter CEO

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