"He was not buying Twitter "to make more money", he said. Instead, he was doing it "to try to help humanity". Still, Musk set lofty technical and commercial goals: X, as he renamed it, would double its revenues within three years and triple its number of users. He promised to "solve" the site's problem with bots, introduce new features, and pledged that content moderation policy would be overseen by a "council with widely diverse viewpoints"."
"Many of Musk's initial promises have come nowhere close to being met. There is no content moderation council, no one uses X as their banking app and the service has been accused by multiple governments of stoking far-right hate, including rioting in the UK. X does not publish many public metrics but figures released by the digital market intelligence company Similarweb suggest X lost about one-fifth of its US users and one-third of its UK users in 2023-24 alone."
"X has a new revenue stream selling premium memberships - which come with the once-vaunted blue ticks - but now pays out millions each month to its top users for their posts. Blue-chip advertisers have largely fled, deterred by Musk's decisions to allow thousands of far-right influencers and conspiracy theorists back on to the platform. Former NBC ad exec Linda Yaccarino was brought on board as chief executive in May 2023 to make the business more professional and repair those relationships. Her efforts were not helped when, later that year, Musk told a conference audience of advertising executives to "go fuck yourselves"."
Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44bn and renamed it X, setting targets to double revenues and triple users within three years and to build an "everything app" including payments and banking. Promises included solving bot problems, adding features, and creating a diverse content-moderation council. Many promises remain unmet: there is no moderation council, no banking adoption, and multiple governments have accused the platform of stoking far-right hate. Similarweb data indicate substantial user losses in the US and UK in 2023-24. X now sells premium memberships and pays top creators, while blue-chip advertisers have largely fled. Linda Yaccarino was hired in May 2023 to repair advertiser relations.
Read at The Observer
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