Twitter has cut half of its workforce and will begin charging $8 for the sought-after blue verification tick, as Elon Musk puts his stamp on the social media platform he bought for $44 billion.
The Tesla boss, who will also serve as chief executive of Twitter, has announced the following actions after he took control a little over a week ago:
Take a look at Musk's Twitter
Top management cuts
Musk fired top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde
Layoffs
Laid off half the workforce on Friday. The company fired more than 90% of its India staff, Bloomberg News reported on Monday. It reported on Sunday that Twitter was asking dozens of employees who lost their jobs to return.
$8 for blue tick verification
Twitter to charge $8/month for Blue, which includes blue tick verification, priority in replies, mentions and search, and ability to post longer videos and audios.
Advertisers hit pause
Several corporate advertisers have distanced themselves from Twitter, including General Motors, Oreo maker Mondelez International, Pfizer Inc and Ford.
Musk tweeted that Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue from the advertiser retreat. He had earlier said he wanted the company to be "the most respected advertising platform".
Content Moderation Council
Musk to set up a content moderation council with "widely diverse viewpoints".
Video Feature
Twitter was working on a feature that would let people post videos and charge users to view them, with the company taking a cut of the proceeds, the Washington Post reported.
Changes to Homepage
Musk requested that logged out users visiting Twitter's site be redirected to Explore page which shows trending tweets and news stories, according to a Verge report.
Vine reboot
Musk put up a poll on Twitter asking people if he should bring back Vine. Of the nearly 5 million people who participated, 70% said "yes". He has instructed Twitter engineers to work on a Vine reboot that could be ready by year-end, Axios reported.
Impersonation to lead to account suspension
Twitter users engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying it as a "parody" account will be permanently suspended without a warning, Musk tweeted.
Long-form text to tweets
Musk said Twitter would soon add the ability to attach long-form text to tweets, followed by monetization for creators for all forms of content.
Search improvements
Musk said Twitter's in-app search would be improved. "Search within Twitter reminds me of Infoseek in ‘98! That will also get a lot better pronto," he tweeted.
Content Accuracy
Musk said Twitter's mission is to become the most accurate source of information about the world.
