How Elon Musk is reinventing Twitter for himself

Faiz Siddiqui and Jeremy B Merrill speak to former employees about changes that have occurred since the app’s takeover by the billionaire in October

Musk targeted the app with the aim of restoring ‘free speech’ (Reuters)

Nearly four months into Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter, one of the most influential social media websites has been transformed into a mercurial billionaire’s personal sandbox.

Twitter users knew the site would change under Musk, who purchased the company in October for $44bn and installed himself as CEO on a promise of restoring “free speech”. What many underestimated was the extent to which Musk would make wholesale changes with the potential to disrupt the experience across the site for his own benefit.

That approach was illustrated dramatically this week when the site Platformer reported Twitter had made major algorithmic changes – on Musk’s orders – that resulted in users seeing the billionaire’s tweets first. Musk had been worried that his engagement was declining: his tweet throwing support behind the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl had not performed as well as President Biden’s, for example. The fix that Twitter rolled out pushed Musk’s tweets to the top of many users’ feeds, something widely noted by users.