Elon Musk’s first week at Twitter: Mass firings, a blue tick subscription drama and bringing back banned users

It feels like it could be a week to forget for Elon Musk since his acquisition of Twitter for a reported Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk">£38.1 billion. The entrepreneur, known for his success with SpaceX and Tesla and for creating PayPal, vowed to unlock the untapped potential the micro-blogging platform had before his initial move to buy the company.

Even the negotiations regarding his deal to buy Twitter was marred with controversy and uncertainty. Originally, Musk wanted to back out of the deal unless Twitter demonstrated their audience analytics and proved that the majority of their user base were not bots. His rallying cries about freedom of speech on the platform also felt like a case of dog whistling for many.

Nonetheless, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter went ahead, with the now infamous video circulating of the billionaire businessman walking into Twitter’s offices with a kitchen sink, informing followers to “let that sink in.”

But it’s hardly been the smooth sailing Musk has expected; a raft of faux pas, cost cutting measures and murmurs of a subscription based “verification” process have been among the many public facing issues that the new owner had faced in the space of one week.

Musk has not shied away from the criticisms either; characteristically taken to the platform to bemoan the barbs he has faced throughout this short tenure as Twitter’s owner, Musk recently changed his Twitter bio to “Twitter Complaint Hotline Manager” and his most recent tweet telling critics “trash me all day, but it’ll cost $8.”

What are the trials and tribulations Elon Musk has faced after seven days in charge of the polarising social media platform?

Mass layoffs by email

We start with the most recent controversy that took place on November 4 at around the 9am mark US time, or for Twitter employees in the UK a not so great way to end the week at 4pm. Twitter announced that due to cost cutting measures they would be letting go of 3,700 staff from their offices around the world. By email. Shortly before the working day.

Even before the fateful emails were mass sent to employees, a number ironically took to the platform they would soon be made redundant from to give their experiences during Twitter’ Black Friday. From the experiences shared online, many revealed that despite not receiving information about their job they were locked out of Slack, Gmail and other workplace tools, giving the impression that no email would be required.