Recent reports suggest that Elon Musk did not waste any time making significant changes to Twitter when he took control of the social media company. Less than 24 hours after completing his $44 billion acquisition, for example, Musk had reportedly implemented several changes.
According to employees reportedly familiar with the matter, Musk had promptly requested that logged-out users who are visiting Twitter’s homepage be directed to the platform’s Explore page. Previous iterations of Twitter’s homepage for logged-out users simply had a sign-up form instead. The change was implemented late Friday, and it reportedly had to require VP involvement to override a code freeze that was put in place on the company.
As noted in a report from The Verge, such a change to Twitter’s homepage would have been fought between teams for weeks under the old system. But with Musk in charge, the change was implemented fast, not unlike how Tesla updates its product pages as necessary.
Apart from changes to Twitter’s homepage, Musk reportedly also ordered that the social media company’s “Super Follows” be renamed to “Subscriptions.” Musk had reportedly discussed using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service to make Twitter available in areas where it is difficult to access as well.
Musk is reportedly relying on an inner circle of trusted friends and colleagues as he takes the reins on Twitter. Several key individuals from his family office, his other ventures, and a number of longtime colleagues have reportedly been added to Twitter’s employee directors and provided company email addresses.
These include Musk’s personal lawyer Alex Spiro, Andrew Musk from Neuralink, Jehn Balajadia from The Boring Company, fellow “Paypal Mafia” member David Sacks, and longtime friend and VC Jason Calacanis. The changes were reported by the publication, which cited Twitter employees and internal correspondence from the social media company itself.
Overall, it appears that one of Musk’s first orders of business is to filter out the social media company’s employees to find out which ones could work at the pace and efficiency that he requires. Musk also appears to be intent on weeding out engineering managers who do not regularly write code.
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