After a month of bizarre headlines that include a public mocking of a disabled Twitter employee and the suggestion that some control of Taiwan should be handed over to China, Elon Musk is proving no stranger to controversy. Now, he appears to be aiming to shake up Twitter's culture.
Since he announced his purchase of Twitter, the billionaire has been pushing for changes at the social media company — and making a name for himself as its unofficial CEO. He has advocated for a subscription model and shifted the focus of the company from ads to content moderation. He also has pushed for an emulation of China's popular WeChat app, which allows users to communicate, pay for things and get news in one place.
But while some of these ideas seem logical and necessary for the platform's health, others are raising questions about whether the billionaire has a clear vision for Twitter or simply wants to wring as much value from it as possible. If the latter is true, it may mean that he plans to cut some of the company's staff, something he has hinted at before.
He has also pushed to change the way Twitter authenticates its users, by adding a fee for verification and creating a tag that shows up under names of public figures in order to distinguish them from spam, scam and impersonation accounts. He has also suggested allowing longer tweets and that the site could temporarily suspend or delete accounts if it believed they violated its terms of service.
