From paid verification to the multi-billionaire takeover, ‘Twitter,’ now known as ‘X,’ hit the edge of the cliff a long time ago. While the platform still has around 237.8 million users (Omnicore Digital Marketing Agency), an estimated 877,000 accounts were deactivated, and 497,000 accounts were suspended by the company’s staff (USA Today). So now we ask, did the app fall off? Does it have a chance of getting back up?
On March 21, 2006, the site was founded under the name ‘Twitter’ by Jack Dorsey and a few others. By 2011, it was recognized globally as the quickest way to get news. This “first to know” mindset remained associated with the site for the next decade. Thanks to this success, the company was able to become public in 2013. However, while Twitter’s stocks benefited the company for years, they are the direct reason we are where we are today.
“I feel like I was already starting to stop using the app,” sophomore Jack Stecker said. “When Elon took over, I was just confused about why he would want to do that.”
In April 2022, Elon Musk, the owner of companies like Tesla and SpaceX, bought 9.2% of the company’s stocks for $54.20 a share. This purchase made him the largest shareholder, giving him a stake in the company. He made a formal offer of roughly $44 billion, and his full purchase of the company was finalized in October of the same year (CNBC). He posted his entrance to the company’s headquarters with the caption, “Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!”
“He ruined it by making everything payable,” sophomore Jacob Bennett said. “Once you could pay for the verification badge, everything went bad.”
Unfortunately, his words were an empty sense of reassurance; the company hit the floor very quickly after Musk’s takeover. Immediately following his takeover, 50% of the company’s workforce was laid off, and the board of directors was dissolved, leaving Musk as the sole decision-maker. The following November, the account verification feature was changed from a strictly legacy badge to something users could pay for. However, the big hit came when the company’s name was changed from ‘Twitter’ to the letter ‘X.’
The app’s user activity tanked following all of these changes. As of November 1, 2022, 11,535 accounts were archived due to inactivity, and remaining accounts continued to go offline (MIT Technology Review).
“The issue with Twitter nowadays is that it’s filled with people who talk about the most minor issues,” sophomore Karma Dusterhoft said. “It’s annoying how negative every post on there is; at least TikTok is funny.”
So, can the app redeem itself? Will it ever have the same “wow” factor it did a decade ago? There is no clear answer, but it doesn’t look too bright. An estimated 1.5 billion accounts have been deemed inactive since 2022 (Omnicore Digital Marketing Agency). What we do know is that other social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram seem to cover the void left by Twitter.
