One year since Twitter takeover: How the social media platform evolved under Elon Musk

Billionaire Elon Musk was spotted at the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Austin, Texas with his 3-year-old son X Æ A-12 over the weekend, but his one-year journey after the acquisition of social media platform Twitter has barely been on the fast track. The Tesla chief acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October last year after a months-long battle. One year on, controversies associated with the platform (now called X), amid the non-stop spread of disinformation, is far from over.

Here are eight highlights of the journey over the past year. After the acquisition, Musk laid off more than 80 per cent of 7,500-strong Twitter staff, including its Indian-origin CEO Parag Agrawal, and even dissolved the trust and safety council. Earlier this month, reports surfaced that Agrawal, former policy lead Vijaya Gadde and other executives finally won $1.1 million in legal fees from the Musk-run company. Above: Parag Agarwal

In November last year, he said that “people have spoken and former US president Donald Trump will be reinstated” on Twitter. In August this year, Trump signalled his return by posting his mugshot from Fulton County Jail in the US on charges of election interference. Musk retweeted his post, saying “Next-level”.

The social media platform started paying creators in July for a share of the ad revenue they earned from ads served in the replies to their posts to other verified users. Last month, X CEO Linda Yaccarino revealed that the platform paid nearly $20 million to creators.

In April, Twitter announced it would remove the verification badge from the legacy accounts to promote its Twitter Blue subscription. It now charges $8 a month from verified users, and is soon launching other paid membership tiers.

In June, Musk created a sensation by posting that he is up for a cage match with Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg -- a fight that never took place. Zuckerberg later launched a competitor to Twitter called Threads on Instagram.

In July, Twitter announced a name change to X.com, to make the platform an “everything app” from live-streaming events and movies, live sports, digital payments and more. "Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app," said Musk.

This month, the European Commission opened an investigation into Musk over an alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular, the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech in the wake of an ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Linda Yaccarino CEO of Twitter, responded, saying the company is actively working with partners, governments, regulators and policymakers to combat misinformation.

X Corp lost over half a billion user visits last month, and the platform dropped to seventh place on the global ranking, behind Instagram, according to new SimilarWeb data.