Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the
Speaker 1: tech are You. We are talking about some of the
Speaker 1: biggest stories in tech over the last year, and today
Speaker 1: we're looking back at a huge train wreck of a
Speaker 1: story that of how the platform formerly known as Twitter
Speaker 1: currently known as a disgrace. I'm sorry as X has
Speaker 1: navigated the year. And before I get into it, I
Speaker 1: want to give a huge shout out to the folks
Speaker 1: over at the Verge. They have a collection of stories
Speaker 1: gathered under the banner the Year Twitter Died. So seriously,
Speaker 1: I'll be hitting some highlights of what has gone on
Speaker 1: over the course of actually the last two years, because
Speaker 1: we have to do some background on this, but to
Speaker 1: really get into the muck, I recommend checking out the
Speaker 1: articles that are part of the Year Twitter Died over
Speaker 1: at the Verge. They're really good and they go into
Speaker 1: a lot more analysis and even opinion, So check those out.
Speaker 1: All right, let's set the scene, all right. Last year
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, folks began to notice that Elon
Speaker 1: Musk was appearing to accumulate a significant amount of Twitter stock,
Speaker 1: like around nine percent of all outstanding shares by early spring,
Speaker 1: the rumor mill was a buzz that Musk might be
Speaker 1: making a move to purchase Twitter, which is a or
Speaker 1: at the time was a publicly traded company now. At
Speaker 1: one point, Musk actually received an offer for a seat
Speaker 1: on the board of directors, and he considered taking it. However,
Speaker 1: taking that position would mean that Musk would have to
Speaker 1: agree to not buy more than fourteen point nine percent
Speaker 1: of the company stock, he would not be allowed to
Speaker 1: own any more than that, and it would also mean
Speaker 1: he would actually have to agree to be more careful
Speaker 1: about what he said publicly about Twitter. Well, neither of
Speaker 1: those things really suited Musk, and he declined the offer. Instead,
Speaker 1: Musk made an unsolicited bid for the company itself. He
Speaker 1: offered up a deal that would see shareholders receive fifty
Speaker 1: four dollars twenty cents per share. Now, at the time,
Speaker 1: Twitter stock was trading at around forty five dollars per share,
Speaker 1: so this would be a significant bump in investments. If
Speaker 1: you're an investor and you own, you know, one thousand
Speaker 1: shares in Twitter and it's going from forty five dollars
Speaker 1: to fifty four. That's great. That's like a nine thousand
Speaker 1: dollars profit from what you had already held. That's great.
Speaker 1: So Musk's offer was kind of flirting at the edge
Speaker 1: of a hostel takeover attempt, and he also announced when
Speaker 1: he had secured fun from various partners who would contribute
Speaker 1: to his purchase of this. Because while Musk is, or
Speaker 1: at times has been, the most wealthy person in the world,
Speaker 1: that wealth is tied into other assets. It's not like
Speaker 1: he has a Scrooge make Duck vault full of gold
Speaker 1: coins that he goes swimming in. Most of his money
Speaker 1: is tied up in stocks in other companies, so it's
Speaker 1: not something that he can just like take forty four
Speaker 1: billion dollars out of the bank and slap it down
Speaker 1: on the table and buy Twitter. So the board of
Speaker 1: director said they would consider the offer. They also prepared
Speaker 1: a measure to protect Twitter should Musk actually pursue a
Speaker 1: hostile takeover, in a type of protection called a poison pill.
Speaker 1: To get into that would take a little too much time,
Speaker 1: but let's just say that they were kind of hedging
Speaker 1: their bets anyway. From that point things went bonkers. The
Speaker 1: board agreed to Musk's offer, whereupon Musk appeared to suddenly
Speaker 1: develop second thoughts. By mid May, so like a month
Speaker 1: after this had really gotten started, Musk was trying to
Speaker 1: get out of the deal he had proposed, and he
Speaker 1: cited all sorts of concerns, saying that things at Twitter
Speaker 1: weren't as peachy keen as he had been led to believe,
Speaker 1: that the platform was absolutely riddled with bots, and that
Speaker 1: this had driven up Twitter's value to a level that
Speaker 1: wasn't realistic. But the problem was Musk's agreement had ceded
Speaker 1: his rights to due diligence, like he had agreed to
Speaker 1: just skip due diligence, so he was kind of stuck.
Speaker 1: It's like agreeing site unseen that you're going to buy
Speaker 1: a house and you sign a contract. Then you show
Speaker 1: up and you find out the houses in shambles, but
Speaker 1: we've already signed the contract. You gave up your rights
Speaker 1: in the agreement. Well Over the following months, Musk repeatedly
Speaker 1: made statements saying things at Twitter were really not good,
Speaker 1: the company was garbage, that he didn't want to buy it,
Speaker 1: and meanwhile the board of directors were taking legal action
Speaker 1: to force Musk to follow through on the deal. And
Speaker 1: you know their point was, Hey, you said you're going
Speaker 1: to buy this. Even if you're not gonna buy it,
Speaker 1: you're gonna owe us a billion dollars because that's what
Speaker 1: the agreement says. If you back out, you've got to
Speaker 1: pay a billion for that privilege. And you are sabotaging
Speaker 1: the company, right, you are saying all these terrible things
Speaker 1: about the company in an effort to get out of
Speaker 1: this deal. We're going to make you follow through. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: Musk did follow through on the deal, but only after
Speaker 1: it was clear there was no way for him to
Speaker 1: get out of the hole he himself had dug. Once
Speaker 1: he realized, oh no, the consequences of my own actions
Speaker 1: are inevitable, he kind of accepted it and went ahead
Speaker 1: and purchased the company. So in October twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk acquired Twitter, and it didn't take long at
Speaker 1: all before he started making huge moves. He cleared house,
Speaker 1: He fired essentially the board of directors in the executive
Speaker 1: team over at Twitter. He also fired about half of
Speaker 1: Twitter's workforce right out of the gate, and made demands
Speaker 1: that led to thousands of other employees resigning because they
Speaker 1: refused to work under the circumstances that he was demanding,
Speaker 1: and Musk reigned over a significantly damaged Twitter. This kind
Speaker 1: of sets the scene for twenty twenty three. Now, even
Speaker 1: before twenty twenty three got started, Twitter was already facing
Speaker 1: a challenge when it came to revenue. The company has
Speaker 1: always struggled with revenue and profitability. Even when Twitter was
Speaker 1: going gangbusters, it wasn't really a profitable company. But according
Speaker 1: to Musk himself, Twitter was losing around four million dollars
Speaker 1: per day back in November of twenty twenty two, and
Speaker 1: advertisers were starting to show signs of caution upon Musk's
Speaker 1: acquisition of the company, And this, as it would turn out,
Speaker 1: would be a tiny preview of what was to come
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. So in January twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: Twitter had around two thousand, three hundred employees. Before Musk
Speaker 1: took the company over, it had seven four hundred folks
Speaker 1: working there. So now they were down to less than
Speaker 1: half of their workforce from just a few months earlier. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk had these huge dreams he wanted implemented. He
Speaker 1: wanted to transform Twitter into something that had been on
Speaker 1: his mind for years, a sort of everything app, similar
Speaker 1: to China's we Chat app, where you could communicate, you
Speaker 1: could conduct commerce, you could do all sorts of things.
Speaker 1: His version of the app had its roots way back
Speaker 1: in his early days as one of the co founders
Speaker 1: of the company that would eventually become PayPal. His version
Speaker 1: back then was to be called x, But Musk wouldn't
Speaker 1: see it come to fruition because some of the other
Speaker 1: folks at the company that would become PayPal decided that
Speaker 1: Dusk was a bit much and they muscled him out
Speaker 1: of the company. Apparently Musk had been determined to prove
Speaker 1: them wrong ever since. Anyway, Musk wanted to transform Twitter
Speaker 1: into something beyond what it already was. But that is
Speaker 1: really hard to do, even if you haven't just gone
Speaker 1: ahead and reduced your workforce by more than half. Just
Speaker 1: keeping Twitter running was a challenge, let alone building the
Speaker 1: elements that would turn it into an everything app. Perhaps
Speaker 1: this drive took too much attention and led to situations
Speaker 1: that if Musk had been a little more attentive, could
Speaker 1: have been avoided. But seeing as how Musk typically reacts
Speaker 1: poorly to pretty much every situation he's ever put in,
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced. In March twenty twenty three, Musk stated
Speaker 1: that he figured Twitter at that point was worth around
Speaker 1: twenty billion dollars. That had to be a blow, because, again,
Speaker 1: at fifty four dollars twenty cents per share, the price
Speaker 1: that Musk paid when he bought company, it brought the
Speaker 1: company up to around forty four billion, So, just like
Speaker 1: the workforce, Twitter's value was reduced by more than half
Speaker 1: since Musk's takeover. Worse yet, Fidelity gave an even more
Speaker 1: drastic estimate, valuing the company down to fourteen point four
Speaker 1: one billion, so like a third of what Musk had
Speaker 1: paid for it. Beyond the monetary value, some users were
Speaker 1: questioning the practical value of Twitter. Once upon a time,
Speaker 1: owners of Note could have their accounts verified by Twitter
Speaker 1: and they would receive a little blue check mark, and
Speaker 1: this mark alerted other users on Twitter that that account
Speaker 1: legitimately represented who or what it claimed to, whether that
Speaker 1: was a celebrity or a news organization or a politician,
Speaker 1: a government agency, what have you. But Musk changed that
Speaker 1: and in twenty twenty two he introduced a paid for
Speaker 1: check system and for eight a month, initially twenty bucks
Speaker 1: a month, but he walked that back because people freaked
Speaker 1: out about it. Anyone could get a check mark. Suddenly
Speaker 1: the verification element of check marks was out the window,
Speaker 1: and in fact, several mischief makers took the opportunity to
Speaker 1: create new accounts that impersonated famous people or brands or
Speaker 1: government agencies. They paid for the check mark so it
Speaker 1: looked like they were the verified account representing that entity,
Speaker 1: and then they started posting all sorts of stuff, including
Speaker 1: really awful stuff. This damaged Twinter's reputation, particularly among brands
Speaker 1: which weren't keen on some Yahoo on the site pretending
Speaker 1: to represent them. It was one of many questionable decisions
Speaker 1: that would lead us to where we are today. We'll
Speaker 1: talk more about some of those questionable decisions, but right
Speaker 1: now we have a decision that's not questionable, and that
Speaker 1: is to thank our sponsors. We're back. So one thing
Speaker 1: that Musk has also done repeatedly is kind of position
Speaker 1: himself as a champion of free speech. You might find
Speaker 1: that his parameters of what constitutes free speech are somewhat subjective.
Speaker 1: Hate speech seemed to increase and flourish on the platform
Speaker 1: a matter that led more than one organization to accuse
Speaker 1: Twitter of failing to prevent or mitigate the problem. Musk's
Speaker 1: response typically is to threaten lawsuits against organizations complaining about
Speaker 1: hate speech on the platform. Meanwhile, more advertisers were rethinking
Speaker 1: their relationship with Twitter, with several pausing spending on any
Speaker 1: advertising money for Twitter campaigns. The situation got bad enough
Speaker 1: that Musk was convinced he needed to find a new CEO,
Speaker 1: mostly to help bring advertisers back to the platform. Now,
Speaker 1: Musk had said his plan was only to act as
Speaker 1: interim CEO from the very beginning. He said that Susie
Speaker 1: found a suitable replacement, that person would be put in
Speaker 1: charge and he would step away. This was something that
Speaker 1: was necessary because shareholders and other companies like Tesla were
Speaker 1: becoming frustrated that Musk's attention was on this social platform
Speaker 1: instead of say, his car company, and that their investments
Speaker 1: in the car company were suffering as a result because
Speaker 1: the company wasn't really going in any good direction. So
Speaker 1: there was this pressure on Elon Musk to name a
Speaker 1: successor over at Twitter, and he did sort of. He
Speaker 1: named Linda Yakarino, a former executive with NBC Universal, who
Speaker 1: was known for having strong relationships with advertisers, which makes sense.
Speaker 1: She worked with advertisers and brands in a high profile
Speaker 1: media company, so she seemed like an ideal choice at
Speaker 1: least as far as repairing Twitter's relationship with brands and
Speaker 1: ad companies would go. But Yakarino has found herself somewhat
Speaker 1: hampered by the fact that Elon has stick on with Twitter,
Speaker 1: and by some accounts at least essentially is still running
Speaker 1: the show over there. So in other words, the common
Speaker 1: perception is that Yakarino is over there to try and
Speaker 1: smooth things out with advertisers and brands, but not to
Speaker 1: actually run the company. That would be Musk's purview. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's a reflection of what is actually happening over at X,
Speaker 1: but it is the common perception anyway, whether she's calling
Speaker 1: the shots or not. She hasn't really been able to
Speaker 1: stop the migration of advertisers from the company. Occasionally you'll
Speaker 1: hear about one tentatively coming back, but more frequently you
Speaker 1: hear about them leaving now. Back in the spring, Musk
Speaker 1: also rebranded Twitter as X Corp. The platform was still
Speaker 1: called Twitter at this point. That would change over the
Speaker 1: summer when Twitter shed its old name and adopted X
Speaker 1: as it's new name, and it also got rid of
Speaker 1: all the Twitter branding and the logos and everything that
Speaker 1: had defined Twitter for more than a decade. This move
Speaker 1: confused a lot of people. It's generally believed that it's
Speaker 1: a bad idea to toss aside a widely recognizable brand
Speaker 1: and to start from scratch. It certainly led to everyone
Speaker 1: using the phrase X formerly known as Twitter. I still
Speaker 1: hear that, and it's been six months since the change. Anyway,
Speaker 1: There's a lot of value that's built up in a brand.
Speaker 1: I think part of the reason people say X formerly
Speaker 1: known as Twitter is that they missed the old Twitter,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of them indicating like, the thing I'm
Speaker 1: talking about now is not the same as the thing
Speaker 1: that I enjoyed using, you know, two years ago. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they decided, for whatever reason to throw all that value out,
Speaker 1: possibly because Elon Musk has some level of obsession over
Speaker 1: the brand X. The changes kept coming. In August, tweet Deck,
Speaker 1: which had started off as a third party Twitter client,
Speaker 1: and then later Twitter acquired tweet deck went from being
Speaker 1: freely available to anyone to being locked behind a paywall
Speaker 1: so only X subscribers can access the tweet deck tool.
Speaker 1: This was a huge hassle to folks who managed multiple
Speaker 1: accounts on X, myself included. I had my own account,
Speaker 1: I had tech Stuff's account, I had a few others,
Speaker 1: and it was really easy to manage from a single
Speaker 1: view in tweet deck, but putting it behind a Twitter
Speaker 1: subscription was a drag. Part of the reason it was
Speaker 1: a drag is that by this point, the Twitter or
Speaker 1: rather X check mark was no longer looked at as
Speaker 1: verification or even a social badge of honor. It was
Speaker 1: quite the opposite. Actually, people started to look at that
Speaker 1: check mark as a sign that you were kind of
Speaker 1: a stooge. At least that was the general perception among
Speaker 1: a subset of Twitter's population or X's population. In fact,
Speaker 1: some accounts that retained the check mark because they just
Speaker 1: had so many followers that musk allowed them to continue
Speaker 1: having the check mark. They would proclaim, Hey, this isn't
Speaker 1: my choice. I didn't subscribe to X. They just gave
Speaker 1: me the check mark, and I have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with it. So it became the opposite social status than
Speaker 1: what it had used to be this past summer, Musk
Speaker 1: also announced that non subscribers would have limits to the
Speaker 1: number of posts they would be able to see in
Speaker 1: a day. Now. The official story for this is that
Speaker 1: they would cut down on data scriping across the platform,
Speaker 1: though skeptics figured it was an effort to drive more subscriptions.
Speaker 1: Musk also introduced a revenue sharing plan for certain Twitter users.
Speaker 1: You again would need to be subscribed to Twitter to
Speaker 1: qualify for this. Musk also generously indicated that he would
Speaker 1: put any money his own account earned back into the pool,
Speaker 1: because obviously, Musk has the most followed account on the platform. Now,
Speaker 1: keep in mind that investigations indicated that a ton of
Speaker 1: musks followers appear to either be inactive or potentially bots.
Speaker 1: Most have fewer than a dozen posts credited to them.
Speaker 1: Many of them have no followers of their own. They
Speaker 1: appear to be passive accounts and arguably serve no value
Speaker 1: other than to inflate Musk's own follower numbers. Let's see
Speaker 1: what else. X also changed its API, its application programmer interface.
Speaker 1: It got rid of all the free options replaced it
Speaker 1: with tiers of paid service. The top tier for enterprises
Speaker 1: costs a blistering forty two thousand dollars a month. This
Speaker 1: led to several developers saying they would have to call
Speaker 1: it quits on their Twitter related apps or they would
Speaker 1: just go bankrupt trying to run them. Musk also welcomed
Speaker 1: back folks who had previously been banned on the platform,
Speaker 1: giving them a space for that free speech he values
Speaker 1: so much. Again, your mileage may vary with Musk's dedication
Speaker 1: to free speech. If you criticize Musk, you might find
Speaker 1: it's not that free anyway. These questionable decisions would include
Speaker 1: reinstating the account of Alex Jones, which was a decision
Speaker 1: that was so shocking I'm sure it convinced advertisers that
Speaker 1: had been on the fence about leaving to just pick
Speaker 1: up their bags and go. At that point. The company's
Speaker 1: financial situation, i think it's safe to say, is in shambles.
Speaker 1: Throughout the year, there were stories of the company failing
Speaker 1: or refusing to pay bills for stuff like office space,
Speaker 1: which led to evictions and lawsuits. X employees have brought
Speaker 1: legal action against the company too, saying they've been denied
Speaker 1: their guaranteed severance The National Music Publishers Association has sued
Speaker 1: X for two hundred and fifty million dollars, alleging multiple
Speaker 1: incidents of copyright infringement. The EU has launched an investigation
Speaker 1: into the company to determine if X is failing to
Speaker 1: follow EU law with regard to policing hate speech. The
Speaker 1: companies on track to post much lower recaps new numbers
Speaker 1: this year than from last year, which in turn was
Speaker 1: already a drop from the year before. Pretty Much every
Speaker 1: story coming out of X right now is negative, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure Vegas is going to start taking bets on if,
Speaker 1: or maybe even when the company will collapse. So can
Speaker 1: X make it through twenty twenty four and out the
Speaker 1: other side? I personally believe it would be much easier
Speaker 1: to achieve that if someone convinced Musk to just step
Speaker 1: back from the company entirely, But I'd be surprised if
Speaker 1: he actually does it. I don't know. The company does
Speaker 1: have a lot of staying power. I mean, it stuck
Speaker 1: around for years without making any sort of profit, but
Speaker 1: it just I don't know. The perception seems to be
Speaker 1: that X now is just a toxic environment and that
Speaker 1: it's destroying itself from within, so we'll see. I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty sad, especially for all the people who lost
Speaker 1: their jobs in the wake of Musk taking over. But
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe it will transform itself again. We'll have
Speaker 1: to see what happens in twenty twenty four. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: I hope all of you are well, and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production.
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