After three months of restructuring and re-strategizing, Twitter is beginning to break even and is beginning to implement new features to make it more competitive.
Key Details
- Musk announced on Sunday that the company is beginning to trend in the right direction after several rough months. The daily user count is holding firm, and the company is moving toward breaking even in the near future.
- The company is now looking forward to new user ideas, such as revenue sharing with Twitter Blue subscribers.
- The company has much internal work to do, and has been working around the clock for nearly three months to rebuild the internal works of the website and rework its algorithms and iron out bugs as they implement new features.
Why It’s Important
Tesla and Space X visionary Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter on October 27, 2022, for $44 billion, and subsequently faced three months of advertiser boycotts, declining revenue, indecisive internal policies, lapsing rent payments, and mass layoffs.
Twitter has faced the possibility of bankruptcy in the past several months as it has struggled to turn the company around into a profitable one with a new vision for success.
Musk’s chaotic actions and messages on Twitter have put the billionaire visionary in legal quandaries and other disputes. Musk has earned a reputation for sharing memes and erratically starting drama with politicians—in addition to facing criticism of fraud after he threatened to take Tesla private in August 2018.
He was only exonerated in a San Francisco court on Friday over claims he’d committed securities fraud by announcing his plans and backing out—a ruling that Reuters warns could embolden Musk to act more chaotically online. Shareholders filed the class action lawsuit, claiming Musk’s tweeting is false and reckless, CNBC notes.
Possible Solution
Part of Twitter’s strategy for rebuilding the website has been revamping Twitter Blue into a viable content service that can rival video-sharing apps like YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok. In addition to providing a verification checkmark, Twitter Blue offers perks such as uploading high-quality and long video content.
As The Verge notes, details for Twitter’s ad sharing have not been fully unveiled yet, although being able to draw ad revenue from tweets and videos could make Twitter an aggressive alternative.
Notable Quote
“Last three months were extremely tough, as I had to save Twitter from bankruptcy while fulfilling essential Tesla & SpaceX duties. I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone. Twitter still has challenges but is now trending to break even if we keep at it. Public support is much appreciated,” tweeted Musk on Sunday.
Backing Up a Bit
Political commentator Dave Rubin reported on January 26 that he was given a tour of Twitter headquarters and a chance to speak with Musk about what the company has worked on since the takeover. Musk’s described the website’s operations as “A Fractal Rube Goldberg Machine,” as he and his engineers have spent the past three months breaking down and rebuilding code to understand how the social media giant works.
“As they fix the code, more problems arise. A delicate balance he likened to a Jenga tower. One wrong move, the whole thing collapses. They’re working nonstop, and both times I met him were after midnight. Elon was bringing people in and out constantly and seems to be aware of pretty much every issue. He thinks maybe the entire code has to be torn down and start from scratch,” says Rubin.
