Elon Musk advanced his plans to change Twitter’s core business operations over the weekend, including by moving toward raising prices for premium users.
In his first moves after finally acquiring the company on Thursday, Musk proposed new product ideas and brought in his own team. The billionaire is also expected to lay off thousands of staff, although he has downplayed that possibility in public.
At least 25% of Twitter’s staff are expected to lose their jobs in the first round of layoffs, according to the Washington Post. Some believe these layoffs could occur before Tuesday, when Twitter employees are scheduled to receive stock grants as compensation. Musk denied that this was happening but did not elaborate.
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The billionaire arrived with his own allies on hand as he began to investigate Twitter’s products, including multiple engineers from Tesla. Musk started by having Twitter engineers print out the last 30 to 60 days of code for him to review, only to have them shred it afterward. Musk is currently labeled CEO in the company’s directory, while his fellow Silicon Valley associates David Sacks and Jason Calacanis are listed as “staff software engineers.”
Musk also sought to make several changes to the website. He changed Twitter’s front page from a registration sheet to the Explore page. He is also reportedly considering a price increase for Twitter Blue, the social platform’s premium service, while allowing users to pay to verify their accounts.
Musk reportedly fired the company’s executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, “for cause,” which would allow him to avoid giving them large payouts. Musk has not stated why he fired them with that specific justification.
Musk also attracted attention when he tweeted and deleted a link to a conspiracy theory about the man who assaulted Paul Pelosi in his house. He was then slammed for spreading misinformation on the platform.
While early reports alleged a surge of racial slurs on Twitter upon Musk’s acquisition of the company, Twitter executives explained that the surge was caused by an “organized effort” of 300 accounts posting 50,000 tweets over a short period.
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The billionaire’s first day owning the platform was quite eventful. While many users were expecting significant changes to Twitter’s content moderation policies in the near term, Musk said that the company would not make any notable changes until the company formed a council to review such decisions. Former President Donald Trump also confirmed that he would not rejoin the platform. Left-wing accounts debated leaving the platform, while conservatives expressed excitement for the leadership change.
