After handing over Twitter to billionaire Elon Musk last year, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is sharing how he really feels about the takeover.
According to Bloomberg, Dorsey, once a supporter of Musk, gave a frank assessment when asked if the company’s new owner and CEO had proven himself to be the right man for the job.
“No. Nor do I think he acted right after realizing his timing was bad. Nor do I think the board should have forced the sale. It all went south,’ Dorsey reportedly wrote on Bluesky, an invite-only Twitter alternative he is backing, according to the news site.
When Did Elon Musk Take Over Twitter?
Musk initiated an acquisition of American social media company Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022. Musk had begun buying shares of the company in January 2022, becoming its largest shareholder by April with a 9.1 percent ownership stake. Elon Musk officially became the owner and CEO of Twitter on October 27, 2022, after acquiring the social media company for $44 billion.
Nearly six months after buying the platform, Musk has made tweaks that have altered what people see on the platform and how they interact with it. Things had intitally went so south, Musk, posted an informal poll of the social media platform’s users asking if he should step down as head of the company. While 57.5% said “yes,” he decided not to give up.
Back in February of this year, Elon Musk fired another 200 staff at Twitter including the executive behind the revamp of its paid-for premium service, according to a reports. Twitter stood at 7,500 people before Musk bought the company in October.
Aside from that, he went ahead and started the process of removing blue check mark icons from the profiles of thousands of celebrities, l politicians and journalists, in one of the most visible indicators of how Elon Musk is changing the company.
Instead, he launched a paid subscription service that would allow anyone to get a verification. However, that has caused some problems and confusion, leading him to revamp the process and badges. Ultimately, the elimination of the check marks, which historically served as a means of identifying public agencies, has convulsed Twitter as information on the platform becomes increasingly unreliable.
Twitter has also removed labels that described prominent news organizations as “government-funded” or “state-affiliated” after NPR and other public broadcasters in several countries criticized the labels as misleading and suspended the use of their accounts.
Dorsey had previously been friendly with Musk and a year ago tweeted, “Elon is the singular solution I trust” regarding the platform. “I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.” However, he has said he’s not here for the subscription process.
“Payment as proof of human is a trap and I’m not aligned with that at all,” Dorsey added on the invitation-only platform. “The payment systems being used for that proof exclude millions if not billions of people.”
Musk has not yet responded to Dorsey’s assessment. Until then, let us know your thoughts in the comment box below!