Since Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion last October, he has initiated dramatic changes to the social media platform. He fired half of the staff as he warned repeatedly about the risk of bankruptcy. Just last week, he said he was working so hard to stave this off that it was harming his physical and mental health. But why is it so close to insolvency? Much of the answer lies in how he’s repeatedly alienated advertisers with his cuts to content moderation—such that revenue plunged more than 40% in just November and December.
Just a month after taking over as CEO, Musk asked in a Twitter poll about whether he should provide “general amnesty” to suspended accounts, and 72% of the respondents voted in favor. Soon enough, he lifted former president Donald Trump’s Twitter ban. As “Chief Twit,” Musk has continued to amend long standing content policies at the social media platform used to weed out inappropriate, violent and sexual content. Just this week, he got directly involved in an account suspension and changed a policy on the fly. The account in question belonged to another conservative politician.
