It’s been a year since Elon Musk bought Twitter in October 2022. He posted a tweet to highlight the anniversary since he closed the deal to buy the social media microblogging platform for $44 billion.
“Freedom,” the tech mogul wrote, quoting his own tweet from October 28 last year, in which he said “the bird is freed,” hinting at the iconic blue bird: Twitter’s logo.
Notable changes Musk made to Twitter since the purchase
The Tesla CEO had to walk a long way before closing the deal. First, in the summer of 2022, he acquired nearly 10% of Twitter shares to become Twitter’s largest individual investor. They then invited him to be a member of the board of directors, but he declined the offer. After that, Musk offered to buy Twitter, but his offer was rejected. This was followed by Twitter agreeing to the future purchase, but then Musk suddenly backed out of the deal and was sued for it.
Ultimately, he paid $44 billion for the social media giant and quickly began cutting the company’s costs: He laid off many people in the senior management team and middle staff, and closed local offices in several other countries. Musk then introduced a mandatory $8 monthly fee for blue checkmarks, which were previously given to users for free but based on vague merit. Musk allowed anyone to have them, thus adding revenue to the company, and he explained this by saying that Twitter cannot rely solely on advertisers when it comes to profits.
Many advertisers left Twitter, but little by little they began to return. Monetization and subscription features have been added. The former allows users to earn a share of advertising revenue and the latter allows them to receive monthly fees from those who choose to subscribe to their content. Twitter users can now write long posts (it’s no longer a microblogging platform) and stream live videos. Voice and video calling features are currently being tested. Finally, Twitter will be renamed X. It has gained 500 million monthly active users.
When purchasing Twitter, Elon Musk stated that his main goal was to give people back freedom of expression on this platform. He compared Twitter to the “global plaza,” where people can talk to each other and exchange opinions. Hence the tweet he posted last year about “freeing the bird.”
The crypto community’s reaction to Musk’s tweet
As has often happened recently, Musk’s tweet sparked an enthusiastic reaction from cryptocurrency fans among his followers (there are quite a few, as Musk is the most followed person on Twitter with 161.1 million followers).
While X’s boss talked about freedom in his tweet, the Kraken exchange responded in its own way, mentioning the leading cryptocurrency, BTC: “Bitcoin is for financial freedom, as
The Gost Privacy Coins team, started by the late John McAfee, also appeared in the comments thread, promoting their project.
Overall, the community thanked Musk for “freeing the bird,” but haters also appeared. An X user asked if Musk intends to integrate Dogecoin into X, as he has hinted at several times in the past.
