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A year after Musk’s Twitter takeover, X remains mired in turmoil

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Elon Musk closed his $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter on October 27, 2022
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A year ago Elon Musk purchased X, formerly known as Twitter, taking the platform on a journey that has resulted in lost money, advertisers and trust.

Musk closed the $44 billion deal on October 27, 2022, facing a lawsuit that held him to terms of purchase he was keen to escape.

Here is a look back at Musk’s first year as owner of the platform.

– Family feeling gone –

In the days after his purchase, Musk quickly fired executives who had been running Twitter and took the publicly traded company private.

He also laid off most of the San Francisco-based company’s workers, cutting ranks to fewer than 1,500 from 8,000.

Twitter employees were asked to commit unconditionally to their jobs and forego any notion of telecommuting.

Former project manager Esther Crawford, who wrote online about her experience, said Musk replaced the company’s family atmosphere with a climate of fear.

She described Musk as audacious but “moody,” surrounding himself with “yes men” and making decisions on instinct.

In July, Musk did away with Twitter’s globally recognized bird logo and changed the platform’s name to X.

– Misinformation –

In the months following his takeover, Musk gutted content moderation, restored accounts of previously banned extremists, and allowed users to purchase account verification, helping them profit from viral — but often inaccurate — posts.

Musk defended such changes in the name of free speech.

He disabled features put in place to prevent users from being duped by false claims and put in new systems that encourage their spread, according to nonprofit fact-checking website PolitiFact.

Steps taken by Musk at X “have sparked increased sharing of misinformation and hate speech,” PolitiFact said Monday in a report, echoing an array of groups tracking toxic content on social media.

The fast-evolving Israel-Hamas conflict has been seen as one of the first real tests of Musk’s version of the platform during a major crisis. For many experts, the results confirm their worst fears: that changes have made it a challenge to discern truth from fiction.

“It is sobering, though not surprising, to see Musk’s reckless decisions exacerbate the information crisis on Twitter surrounding the already tragic Israel-Hamas conflict,” Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at the watchdog Free Press, told AFP.

This month the European Commission announced an investigation into X for alleged dissemination of bogus information and terrorist content regarding the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

X chief executive Linda Yaccarino has signaled that the platform is serious about trust and safety, but researchers have voiced pessimism, saying the site has abandoned efforts to elevate top news sources.

– Money matters –

Over the past year, the platform’s advertising business partially collapsed as marketers soured on X.

Insider Intelligence forecasts that X will finish 2023 with $2.98 billion in ad revenue, compared to $4.14 billion in 2022.

Musk early this year said the company’s value had more than halved to $20 billion, and some estimates place it even lower.

Musk started charging for features once free at Twitter, such as blue tick marks originally intended as badges of authenticity, in an effort to make money from subscriptions.

And X recently started charging new users in New Zealand and the Philippines for basic features such as posting messages in a trial aimed at reducing spam.

Musk has suggested charging all X users, but the idea was widely panned. Industry analysts said it would make X even less appealing to advertisers.

“X’s wounds are almost entirely self-inflicted,” Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg told AFP.

“Musk’s treatment of the platform as a technology he could remake in his vision, rather than as a social network powered by people and ad dollars, is the single largest cause of advertiser exodus, user decline and loss of its place as a central hub for news.”

While speaking at a recent tech conference, Yaccarino estimated the number of daily active X users at 225 million, a drop of more than 10 percent from when Musk bought the company.

Twitter quitters have become a diaspora of sorts, spread across Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads and other platforms in search of a new social media home.

– Right-wing tilt –

Extreme right-wing content has meanwhile flourished at X.

Musk reinstated former president Donald Trump’s account and did away with a team devoted to fighting misinformation about elections.

Former Fox news host Tucker Carlson, known for radical conservative opinions, launched a show on X after being fired from the television station.

Catering to the more mainstream right, Musk hosted and streamed interviews with Republican US presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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ByteDance says ‘no plans’ to sell TikTok after US ban law

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A new US law requires TikTok to sever all ties with its Chinese parent ByteDance or face a ban in the United States
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Chinese tech giant ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell TikTok after a new US law put it on a deadline to divest from the hugely popular video platform or have it banned in the United States.

US lawmakers set the nine-month deadline on national security grounds, alleging that TikTok can be used by the Chinese government for espionage and propaganda as long as it is owned by ByteDance.

The Information, a tech-focused US news site, reported that ByteDance was looking at scenarios for selling TikTok without the powerful secret algorithm that recommends videos to its more than one billion users around the world.

ByteDance denied it was considering a sale.

“Foreign media reports about ByteDance exploring the sale of TikTok are untrue,” the company posted Thursday on Toutiao, a Chinese-language platform it owns.

“ByteDance does not have any plans to sell TikTok.”

TikTok has been a political and diplomatic hot potato for years, first finding itself in the crosshairs of former president Donald Trump’s administration, which tried unsuccessfully to ban it.

It has forcefully denied any link to the Chinese government, and said it has not and will not share US user data with Beijing.

TikTok says it has also spent around $1.5 billion on “Project Texas”, under which US user data would be stored in the United States.

Its critics say the data is only part of the problem, and that the TikTok recommendation algorithm — the “secret sauce” for its success — must also be disconnected from ByteDance.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has said the company will take the fight against the new law to the courts, but some experts believe that for the US Supreme Court, national security considerations could outweigh free speech protection.

– Bullish investors –

The estimated valuations of TikTok are in the tens of billions of dollars, and any forced sale would present major complications.

Among those with deep enough pockets, US tech giants such as Instagram-parent Meta or Google would likely be blocked from buying the app over competition concerns.

Further, many investors consider TikTok’s recommendation algorithm to be its most valuable feature.

But any sale of such technology by a Chinese company would require approval from Beijing, which designated such algorithms as protected technology following Trump’s attempt to ban TikTok in 2020.

Beijing has so far vocally opposed any forced sale of TikTok, saying it will take all necessary measures to protect Chinese companies.

While TikTok is a global phenomenon, it represents a small fraction of ByteDance’s revenue, according to analysts and investors. 

ByteDance has enjoyed explosive growth in recent years, becoming one of the most valuable companies in the world. Its international investors, including US firms General Atlantic and SIG as well as Japan’s SoftBank, have stakes worth billions.

“TikTok US is a very small part of the overall business. It is an exciting part of the story, for sure, but… relative to the overall size, it’s a very small part,” ByteDance investor Mitchell Green, of US-based Lead Edge Capital, told CNBC television last month.

“If it was kicked out of the US, we would not sell.”

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Five things we learned at the China Auto Show

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The consumer tech giant is the latest entrant to China's cut-throat EV market, with its new SU7 model the star of the show
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One of China’s largest auto shows kicked off in Beijing on Thursday, with electric vehicle makers keen to show off their latest designs and high-tech accessories to consumers in the fiercely competitive market.

Here are the key developments from Auto China’s first day of action:

– Xiaomi –

The consumer tech giant is the latest entrant to China’s cut-throat EV market, with its new SU7 model the star of the show.

Less than one month after its launch, almost 76,000 pre-orders have been placed, Xiaomi said, an accumulation of orders that will take months to deliver given its current production capacity.

Xiaomi boss Lei Jun was swarmed at Auto China on Thursday by legions of loyal fans, eager to follow the entrepreneur’s every move around the convention complex.

– XPeng –

Among car giant Tesla’s main rivals in the Chinese market is XPeng, which announced plans to begin large-scale deployment of AI-assisted driving in its vehicles in May.

“The AI learns the driver’s habits and can then imitate their driving” and enhance security, company boss He Xiaopeng told an audience while presenting the X9, a seven-seater “so spacious it can accommodate five bicycles in its trunk”.

– CATL –

Also present at the show was Chinese battery giant CATL, founded in 2011 in the eastern city of Ningde and now the undisputed global leader in EV batteries.

Its factories produce more than a third of car batteries sold worldwide and are equipped in models from a long line of foreign manufacturers including Mercedes, BMW, VW, Tesla, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai.

Responding Thursday to one of the main criticisms of EVs — long charging times that restrict mobility — CATL announced a remedy: “Shenxing Plus”, an ultra-fast battery pack that the firm says earns one kilometre (0.62 miles) in range for every second of charging.

– Nio –

In contrast to much of the EV industry, Chinese automaker Nio focuses on battery-swap technology rather than recharging individual vehicles.

The Shanghai-based firm founded 10 years ago said Thursday it had accumulated nearly 2,500 battery swapping points across China.

Nio also presented its ET7, a sedan model the firm claims has a range of 1,000 kilometres.

– Tencent-Toyota alliance –

Japanese auto-making juggernaut Toyota also announced Thursday that it would join hands with Chinese tech and gaming giant Tencent in AI, a bid to capitalise on local consumers’ increasing appetite for advanced smart car features.

The cooperation will apply to Toyota vehicles sold in China, said Toyota, which like other foreign manufacturers, has struggled to keep up in the ultra-competitive market as the industry shifts to electric.

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US to give Micron $6.1 bn for American chip factories

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US lawmakers have approved billions of dollars to support the onshoring of semiconductor production
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Micron is set to receive up to $6.1 billion in grants from the US government to help build its semiconductor plants in New York and Idaho, the White House said Thursday.

The award, to be announced by President Joe Biden as he travels to Syracuse, New York, is the latest in a series of efforts by Washington to bring semiconductor production back to the country.

The United States has been working to ensure its lead in the chip industry, especially with regards to the development of artificial intelligence — both on national security grounds and in the face of competition with China.

The investment will help Micron “bring back leading-edge memory chip manufacturing to the United States for the first time in 20 years,” Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate majority leader, told reporters.

The $6.1 billion in direct funding comes under the CHIPS and Science Act, a major package of funding and tax incentives passed by Congress in 2022 to boost research and US semiconductor production.

The White House said the funds will go to supporting construction of two facilities in Clay, New York, and one in Boise, Idaho, where Micron is headquartered.

The US Commerce Department will also make up to $7.5 billion in proposed loans available under a preliminary deal.

Micron is set to invest up to $125 billion across both states over the next two decades “to build a leading-edge memory manufacturing ecosystem,” according to the White House.

The US chipmaker’s total investment is due to create more than 70,000 jobs, including 20,000 direct construction and manufacturing roles.

– Supply chain shocks –

While semiconductors were invented in the United States, the White House noted that the country makes just around 10 percent of the world’s chips now — and “none of the most advanced ones.”

Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra called the step a “historic moment” for US semiconductor manufacturing, saying its US investments will “create many high-tech jobs.”

“Leading-edge memory chips are foundational to all advanced technologies,” said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

She added that returning the development and production of advanced memory semiconductor technology to the country is “crucial for safeguarding our leadership on artificial intelligence and protecting our economic and national security.”

Chips are needed in powering everything from smartphones to fighter jets, and are increasingly in demand by automakers, especially for electric vehicles.

But the global chip industry is dominated by just a few firms, including TSMC in Taiwan and California-based Nvidia.

The United States is dependent on Asia for chip production, making it vulnerable to supply chain shocks, such as during the Covid-19 pandemic or in the event of a major geopolitical crisis.

“We’re already seeing AI revolutionize our world and grow at an unprecedented pace,” said Schumer. 

“We cannot, cannot have these chips made overseas, especially by competitors like China. We cannot have them be the only supplier,” he added.

Apart from the grants to Micron, Biden is also expected to announce four new “workforce hubs” in the Upstate New York region, the state of Michigan, as well as the cities of Philadelphia and Milwaukee.

According to senior government officials, such hubs are a way to spur more commitments from employers and educational institutions.

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