-Aryan Lal
After a rocky start to their relationship, Musk promptly fired several top-level executives, including the recently appointed CEO Parag Agarwal, and laid off half the staff. Hundreds more resigned from the company after Musk demanded they commit to “extremely hardcore” work.
So far, Musk has proposed several reforms and visions for the future of Twitter, most notably new features to combat spambots, make algorithms open-source to improve transparency, and promote free speech. While these are good ideas and will definitely change the platform for the better, he is yet to deliver on any of them in a meaningful way. And as it stands, Musk’s first weeks as Twitter’s new boss have been widely described as tumultuous and chaotic.
The company is still yet to hear anything official from Elon Musk, either by mail or through a companywide meeting. After losing thousands of their colleagues, many employees don’t even know who their managers are. Meanwhile, Musk’s increasingly erratic leadership, coupled with his habit of tweeting in eye-watering poor taste, gives many current and former employees a sinking feeling about the future of their company.
The disastrous rollout of Musk’s first signature project, a refurbished version of the Twitter Blue subscription that should allow anyone to have a verified badge, further fuels the fire. All this chaos raises the question: do Musk and his team have any idea what they’re doing?
It’s also important to consider the potential negatives the relaxation of content moderation might have, some of which we are already starting to see. Despite Musk’s claims that hate speech on Twitter fell by one-third post his acquisition, researchers have found that it has skyrocketed at an unprecedented rate. More worryingly, extremist accounts that were previously banned from the site have been resurfacing and are continuing to spread radical ideas. With Twitter’s recommendation engine helping to connect these individuals, this could eventually lead to increasing levels of on-the-ground violence.
While Elon Musk’s tenure at Twitter has had a catastrophic start, it’s always important to be optimistic in the fast-moving tech world. Some still have hope in the man who has proved that he has what it takes to take a company to the top, and only time will tell if that hope is misplaced.
The Echo 