In October, Elon Musk acquired Twitter and took it private. The journey has been quite tumultuous and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has said that Twitter still has a lot of problems.
Jack Dorsey resigned as Twitter CEO in 2021 and named Parag Agrawal as the CEO. When Musk took over, the first thing he did was to fire several top executives, including Agrawal. He later laid off almost half of Twitter’s employees as well as many contractors.
In a blog post, Dorsey referred to the ongoing controversy over “Twitter files” which are a set of internal company documents which Musk has been releasing to select journalists. Many believe that the files corroborate what many conservatives have been saying for a long that Twitter and other social media platforms selectively suppress conservative voices.
Dorsey offered his views on how to “fix” Twitter. He listed three solutions based on his experience and past actions. Firstly, Dorsey said, “Social media must be resilient to corporate and government control.” Secondly, he said that only the original author should be able to remove any post. Finally, he said, “Moderation is best implemented by algorithmic choice.”
While Dorsey did not directly blame Musk, he made an apparent observation that everything is not right at the company under Musk. He said, “The Twitter when I led it and the Twitter of today do not meet any of these principles.”
Jack Dorsey Says Twitter Faces Problems
Notably, most believe that Twitter was soft on liberals. The company indeed took several such actions including those related to Hunter Biden, the permanent suspension of Donald Trump’s account, and action against users mimicking Nancy Pelosi’s and her husband’s stock trades.
Since Musk took over Twitter, he has restored the accounts of many conservatives, including Trump.
Trump meanwhile is not keen on joining Twitter. He has launched his own social media business which has announced a merger with Digital World Acquisition (NYSE: DWAC). We have a guide on how investors can buy DWAC stock.
Musk has Lost Popularity Since He Acquired Twitter
To be sure, both Tesla and Musk have lost popularity since he acquired Twitter. Musk has always been polarizing and along with his vast and loyal fan army, there were many who disagreed with him. However, Musk is now a polarizing personality on political lines as well.
Several brokerages, including those otherwise bullish on Tesla, have also turned cautious about its near-term outlook. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas continues to remain bullish on TSLA stock and believes that there would be a good buying opportunity near his bear case target price of $150. We have a guide on how to buy Tesla stock.
Dorsey Lists the Mistakes he Made at Twitter
In his blog post, Dorsey said that since Twitter was a public company without any defense mechanism like a dual-class structure, he wasn’t able to push for the changes. He blamed an activist investor for giving up on the changes. While Dorsey did not name any entity it is an apparent reference to Elliott Management which was looking to push Dorsey out of Twitter.
Dorsey said, “The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves.” He also said that Twitter was prone to outside pressures like advertisement budgets.
Can Elon Musk Fix the Troubles at Twitter?
Meanwhile, Musk has been trying to restructure Twitter and among others he wants the company to end its reliance on advertisements. Twitter is now moving to a subscription model and has started charging for verified accounts. It remains to be seen how much traction the initiative gets.
From a content moderation perspective, Twitter has looser controls now. Many reports have shown an increase in hate speech, including against LGBTQ groups on the platform.
Decisions to restore or suspend accounts seem to be taken solely by Musk as was evident in his suspending Kayne West’s account.
While Dorsey was initially supportive of Musk’s Twitter acquisition, going by his blog post, he does not seem too impressed with the way Tesla CEO has managed Twitter over the last few weeks.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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