In his first official week at Twitter, Elon Musk tried on a few new titles for himself, including Chief Twit and Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator.
He also clapped back at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) with a taunt about paying for her blue checkmark and pleaded with famed author Stephen King to pay for his checkmark.
The world’s richest man also unveiled a plan to terminate almost 3,700 employees at the social media company — about half of its workforce — “in a bid to drive down costs following his $44 billion acquisition,” Bloomberg reported. Meanwhile third-party estimates from Bot Sentinel suggested that more than 875,000 users deactivated their accounts between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1, while half a million more were suspended, according to MIT Technology Review.
That all followed Musk seizing control at the social network by ousting senior leadership, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and policy head Vijaya Gadde one week earlier. And two days after Musk promised advertisers the platform would not become a “free-for-all hellscape,” he gave credibility to and spread disinformation about the recent attack on Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, in a tweet replying to former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential election popular vote winner Hillary Clinton. Musk later deleted the tweet about Paul Pelosi.
Since then, Musk said the company would not allow “anyone who was de-platformed for violating Twitter rules back on platform until we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks.”
See what cartoonists from around the world are saying about the new Chief Twit:
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