The X factor: Twitter's many changes since Musk took over

In the most significant change brought to Twitter till date, the social media site has now been rebranded 'X' by its owner, billionaire Elon Musk.

Since Meta came out with its own micro-messaging service, Threads, Twitter had been facing tough competition, and this new look might help the social media giant in attracting users once again.

There have been many changes in the company since Musk took over, some being quite controversial, including the times when the Tesla and SpaceX CEO decided to give back suspended accounts to controversial figures like influencer Andrew Tate and psychologist Jordan Peterson.

Here we take a look at such changes:

1. The most notable change Musk brought was taking the publicly traded company private. Shares of the company can no longer be purchased on the stock market.

2. Immediately after taking over, Musk fired Twitter's top three executives - Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde. What began with the top three execs soon trickled down the company's ranks, with Twitter letting go of more than half of its 7,500-strong workforce. The company also ended its deals with a number of contractors. Musk also showed the door to a number of employees who had criticised him online or in private.

3. The communications department of the social media company was also scrapped by Musk soon after his takeover, which is also in line with his other companies, Tesla and SpaceX, which do not have such departments of their own. NPR has confirmed that when it sent a press enquiry to Twitter in April 2023, the company replied with a feces emoji.

4. In an unprecedented move, Musk, on December 18, 2022, conducted a poll on Twiiter, where he asked users whether he should step down as the company's CEO. He said he would "abide by the results of this poll".

When the decision came in favour of Musk no longer being CEO, he did take time, but ultimately announced Linda Yaccarino as the social media giant's new CEO.

5. After some of Musk's controversial decisions, Twitter started losing huge amounts of advertisement revenue, and this was the perfect moment for Musk to introduce paid verifications in the form of Twitter Blue. What only important officials and celebrities had till then, was finally opened up for the masses. Twitter even announced a host of new features for subscribers of Twitter Blue that are not available to free users. And to make the playing field level, Twitter removed the 'legacy' verification badges of all individuals who were not subscribed to Twitter Blue.

6. In another policy change, Twitter, from June 2023, began designating the words 'cis' and 'cisgender' as slurs.

7. Musk, in July 2023, had been hinting that the company would go through a rebranding. To that end, the name 'Twitter' will now be dropped, the bird logo done away with, and a tweet from now on will be called "an X".

Why X?

Musk has a fascination with the letter X, with this reflecting in a number of business choices he has taken over the years, the earliest one being in 1999, when he registered the domain 'x.com'.

Musk's company that manufactures reusable rockets — SpaceX — is also another example of his fascination with the letter.

The South Africa-born tycoon has also named one of his children X Æ A-12.