Twitter
Twitter, Inc., was an American social media company based in San Francisco, California. The company operated the social networking service Twitter and previously the Vine short video app and Periscope livestreaming service.Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 and was launched that July. By 2012, more than 100 million users tweeted 340 million tweets a day,and the service handled an average of 1.6 billion search queries per day. The company went public in November 2013. By 2019, Twitter had more than 330 million monthly active users.On April 25, 2022, Twitter agreed to a 44 billion dollar buyout by Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, one of the biggest deals to turn a company private.On July 8, Musk terminated the deal.
Twitter shares fell,leading company officials to sue Musk in the Chancery Court of Delaware on July 12.On October 4, Musk announced his intention to purchase the company as he had agreed, for 44 billion dollar, or 54.20dollar a share, the agreement closed on October 27.Following Musk takeover, Twitter has been criticized for an increase in hate speech,as well as for perceived systemic prioritization of right-wing content. His acquisition of the company has been characterized by large-scale policy changes, mass terminations and resignations (layoff), and a dramatic shift in the company work culture. After Musk took over, Twitter was merged with X Holdings,and Twitter ceased to be an independent company, instead being part of X Corp.Acquisition by Elon MuskMain article: Acquisition of Twitter by Elon MuskBusiness magnate Elon Musk revealed that he had bought 9.1percentage of Twitter for 2.64 billion dollar on April 4, 2022.In response, Twitters stock rose by as much as 27percentage and Twitter shares experienced the largest intraday surge since Twitter IPO in 2013.Musk was appointed to Twitter board on April 9, under a deal that prohibited him from acquiring more than 14.9percentage of the company.Musk made an unsolicited offer on April 14 to acquire Twitter for 43 billion dollar and take the company private.Publicly, Musk expressed that his offer was motivated by concerns with how the company was managed, emphasizing his concern that policies he described as censorship were leading to a lack of free speech on the platform.
Twitter board introduced a poison pill strategy on April 15, which would allow shareholders to buy additional stock should a hostile takeover occur as a means to block Musk takeover. On April 20, Musk secured 46.5 billion dollar in funding as a tender offer, which the board accepted on April 25.On July 8, Musk announced he was unilaterally terminating the proposed acquisition, claiming in a regulatory filing that Twitter was in material breach of several parts of the agreement by refusing to comply with Musk requests for spambot account data and dismissing high-ranking employees.In response, Twitter board chair Bret Taylor pledged to pursue legal action against Musk at the Delaware Court of Chancery with the goal of completing the acquisition. On July 12, Twitter opened a lawsuit against Musk to force the sale to proceed. On September 13, 2022, Twitter shareholders voted to approve Elon Musk takeover of the company.On October 4, 2022, it was reported that Musk offered to proceed with the deal at the original offer price of 54.20 dollar per share.The deal closed on October 27, 2022, with the merger between Twitter, Inc. and X Holdings II, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of X Holdings I, Inc., wholly owned by Musk,and Musk took control of the company,paying 54.20 dollar per share, or about 44 billion dollar.On October 28, immediately following Musk acquisition, he fired CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal.Twitter stock was suspended from trading prior to the New York Stock Exchange opening the next day and was delisted on November 8.On October 31, Musk announced in a security filing that he had dissolved the board of directors and would serve as the CEO of the company.In January 2023, he also fired an employee who criticized him.
On November 4, Twitter laid off about half of its 7,500 employees, leaving several internal departments, including communication and core engineering teams understaffed.Some of the employees were later asked to return, with Twitter stating that they were laid off by mistake.Several current and former Twitter employees sued the company for violations of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 due to failures to provide a 60-day notice prior to mass firings.Top security, compliance, content moderation, and sales executives resigned due to Musk stating that employees must either work longer hours or resign from the company.On November 16, Musk issued an ultimatum to all remaining Twitter employees warning that workers could expect long, intense hours of work if they decided to stay, a decision that was ordered to be made by the following day, with news sources reporting numerous employees leaving on the same day.
The Verge reported that multiple critical engineering teams completely or near-total resigned, increasing internal fears of a collapse of Twitter.Within a week of Musk acquisition and subsequent internal instability of the firm, including layoffs of Twitter trust and safety teams, large advertisers including General Mills, Pfizer, Volkswagen, and General Motors announced an advertising pause. Advertising agencies, including IPG and Omnicom Media Group, advised clients to pause ad spending on Twitter temporarily until the platform can sufficiently assure brand safety concerns.Apprehension over increased hate speech made advertisers leave in large numbers. Impersonator accounts had increased following errors in the blue tick scheme for verified users causing concerns.Musk said Twitter was experiencing a massive drop in revenue causing losses of 4 million dollar per day, which he attributed to activist groups pressuring advertisers, adding that nothing is working to lure advertisers back.According to a November 2022 report from Media Matters for America, Twitter had lost half of its top 100 advertisers, which spent 750 million dollar on ads in 2022.Advertising research firm Standard Media Index said advertiser spending on Twitter declined 55percentage in November year-on-year, and declined 71percentage in December, despite those holiday months typically seeing higher ad spending.By December 2022, Musks family office privately sought to sell new shares valued at his original acquisition price of 54.20 dollar, amid turmoil among users and advertisers, and debt payments approaching.
Musk money manager wrote to investors that in recent weeks the family office had received numerous inbound requests to invest in Twitter.The Wall Street Journal reported in January 2023 that talks had been held to raise up to 3 billion dollar to pay down some of the 13 billion dollar in bank debt incurred in the deal, which includes a 3 billion dollar high interest rate bridge loan. Musk denied the report, saying, corpo media shills clearly have their marching orders to write hit pieces on me these days.After Elon Musk acquisition of American social media platform Twitter, National Public Radio were designated as US state-affiliated media in April 2023, a label thats typically been reserved for foreign media outlets that represent the official views of the government, like Russia RT and China Xinhua.This move by Twitter sparked a controversy and accusations of pro-Republican bias. In a statement to Variety, NPR president and CEO John Lansing condemned the decision.Twitter, Inc. was merged with X Corp. in April 2023.In late April 2023, secret U.S. military materials were leaked online. The leaked classified documents continued to be spread on Twitter, despite the social media platform formally disallowing the spread of hacked materials per its policy page.
In response to a tweet about the leak, Twitter CEO Elon Musk sarcastically wrote that Fyou can totally delete things from the Internet and that works perfectly and does not draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide at all, seemingly alluding to the Streisand effect and suggesting that Twitter would not take down the documents.Discord is cooperating with law enforcement in regard to the leak.
Type Private Industry Social media
Founded March 21, 2006,17 years ago in San Francisco
Founders Jack Dorsey•Noah Glass•Biz Stone•Evan Williams Defunct April 2023 Fate Merged with X Corp.Successor X Corp.
Headquarters San Francisco, California United States
Area served World wide
Key people Elon Musk (CEO)Owner Elon Musk
Number of employees 1,500 (Apr 2023)
Website about.twitter.com
Twitter raised Over US57 million dollar from venture capitalist growth funding, although exact figures are not publicly disclosed.
Twitter first A round of funding was for an undisclosed amount that is rumored to have been between US1 million dollar and US5 million dollar.Its second B round of funding in 2008 was for US22 million dollar and its third C round of funding in 2009 was for US35 million dollar from Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital along with an undisclosed amount from other investors including Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, and Insight Venture Partners.Twitter is backed by Union Square Ventures, Digital Garage, Spark Capital, and Bezos Expeditions.The company raised US200 million dollar in new venture capital in December 2010, at a valuation of approximately US3.7 billion dollar. In August 2010 Twitter announced a significant investment led by Digital Sky Technologies that, at US800 million dollar, was reported to be the largest venture round in history.In December 2011, the Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal invested US300 million dollar in Twitter. The company was valued at US8.4 billion dollar at the time.
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