Even after more than two months, Elon Musk did not seem to find his foot financially after buying Twitter. The billionaire wanted to bring reformation on Twitter and in the company since he announced buying it. He has been pitching for changes since he was the biggest shareholder in the company. But, the deal was not smooth sailing for him. He faced many hurdles to finally acquire the platform in October 2022.
Since the acquisition, he has been executing various changes that he envisioned. The main motive is to earn revenue from the microblogging site. The primary source of revenue is advertisements. But, when Elon Musk bought the platform, many advertisers pulled out from advertising on the platform. The activists, he alleged, pressurized the advertisers. To earn revenue, he has also introduced a monthly subscription plan for the blue check marks along with various exclusive features. Now, he is planning to broaden the revenue stream by biding some exclusive usernames.
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Elon Musk Will Sell Usernames On Twitter To Gain Revenue
In April 2022, Elon Musk reprimanded certain celebrities, because they did not post anything on their account for several months. He was merely a stakeholder in the company. Musk posed a question on whether Twitter is dying because these “top accounts tweet rarely and post very little content. The billionaire exemplified the inactivity by mentioning Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber’s activity.
These are obvious account deletions with no tweets & no log in for years
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
But, in December 2022, Elon addressed the issue again. He wrote, “Twitter will soon start freeing the name space of 1.5 billion accounts”. Elon continued, “These are obvious account deletions with no tweets & no log in for years”. Now, the sources said that he will be auctioning certain usernames to create a new revenue stream. The idea got seeded in December 2022.
According to The New York Times, “Engineers have discussed running online auctions where people can bid for the user names, which are the words, numbers or string of characters that follow the @ sign by which accounts are identified on the platform. Mr. Musk’s user name, for example, is @elonmusk”. The previous executive board deemed the trade of usernames illegal.
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The CEO Allegedly Cheated The Former Twitter Employees Over Severance Pay
In November 2022, Elon Musk sacked more than half of Twitter’s workforce globally. The company was losing $1 million every day and the advertisers have already pulled out. But, the new CEO did not provide any prior notice to the staff as required. Since then, he began a sacking saga when he asked the remaining employees to commit to the “hardcore” work environment or quit with three months’ severance. So, the employees staged an exodus leaving Musk with fewer employees and lawsuits!
The Tesla lawsuit’s jury deliberation will begin on January 17th, 2023. On the heels of the lawsuit, Shannon Liss-Riordan has filed 100 more demands for arbitration. This comes after Elon Musk sent the employees with separation contracts. However, he did not offer the same amount of severance pay as he promised when the employees were fired and left. The former women employees at Twitter have also filed class-action lawsuits due to discrimination faced during the mass layoffs.
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