Billionaire Elon Musk is already floating main modifications for Twitter as he begins his first week as owner of the social-media platform.
A enterprise capitalist working with Musk tweeted a ballot asking how a lot customers can be prepared to pay for the blue examine mark that Twitter has traditionally used to confirm higher-profile accounts so different customers understand it’s actually them.
Musk, whose account is verified, replied, “Attention-grabbing.”
Critics have derided the mark, typically granted to celebrities, politicians, enterprise leaders and journalists, as an elite standing image.
However Twitter additionally makes use of the blue examine mark to confirm activists and individuals who instantly discover themselves within the information, in addition to little-known journalists at small publications across the globe, as an additional device to curb misinformation coming from accounts which are impersonating folks.
“The entire verification course of is being revamped proper now,” Musk tweeted Sunday in response to a person who requested for assist getting verified.
Musk has invited a gaggle of tech world mates and traders to assist information the San Francisco-based firm’s transformation, which is prone to embrace a shakeup of its employees. Musk final week fired CEO Parag Agrawal and different high executives. There’s been uncertainty about if and when he may start larger-scale layoffs.
Those that have revealed they’re serving to Musk embrace Sriram Krishnan, a accomplice at enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz, which pledged again within the spring to chip in to Musk’s plan to purchase the corporate and take it non-public.
Krishnan, who can also be a former Twitter product govt, mentioned in a tweet that it’s “a massively vital firm and might have nice affect on the world and Elon is the individual to make it occur.”
Jason Calacanis, the enterprise capitalist who tweeted the ballot about whether or not customers would pay for verification, mentioned over the weekend he’s “hanging out at Twitter a bit and easily attempting to be as useful as potential in the course of the transition.”
Calacanis mentioned the workforce already “has a really complete plan to cut back the variety of (and visibility of) bots, spammers, & bad actors on the platform.” And within the Twitter ballot, he requested if customers would pay between $5 and $15 to “be verified & get a blue examine mark” on Twitter. Twitter is presently free for many customers as a result of it depends upon promoting for its income.
Musk agreed to purchase Twitter for $44 billion in April however it wasn’t till Thursday night that he lastly closed the deal, after his makes an attempt to again out of it led to a protracted authorized battle with the corporate. Musk’s attorneys at the moment are asking the Delaware Chancery Court docket to throw out the case, in response to a court docket submitting made public Monday. The 2 sides have been alleged to go to trial in November in the event that they didn’t shut the deal by the tip of final week.
Musk has made a variety of pronouncements since early this 12 months about repair Twitter, and it stays unclear which proposals he’ll prioritize.
He has promised to chop again a few of Twitter’s content material restrictions to advertise free speech, however mentioned Friday that no main choices on content material or reinstating of banned accounts shall be made till a “content material moderation council” with numerous viewpoints is put in place. He later certified that comment, tweeting “anybody suspended for minor & doubtful causes shall be free of Twitter jail.”
The top of a cryptocurrency trade that invested $500 million in Musk’s Twitter takeover mentioned he had a variety of causes for supporting the deal, together with the likelihood Musk would transition Twitter into an organization supporting cryptocurrency and the idea referred to as Web3, which many cryptocurrency fans envision as the following era of the web.
“We need to be sure that crypto has a seat on the desk with regards to free speech,” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao instructed CNBC on Monday. “And there are extra tactical issues, like we need to assist carry Twitter into Web3 once they’re prepared.”
He mentioned cryptocurrency could possibly be helpful for fixing a few of Musk’s instant challenges, such because the plan to cost a premium membership charge for extra customers.
“That may be achieved very simply, globally, by utilizing cryptocurrency as a way of fee,” he mentioned.