'Freed' bird: Day 1 of Elon Musk's Twitter and the social media platform's path forward

For most market watchers or even casual observers of headlines over the last several years, the last 24 hours have been big: Elon Musk, the celebrated space entrepreneur, prolific and provocative Tweeter and the world's richest man, has finally closed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter.

Elon Musk – who is also Tesla's CEO – confirmed the deal in less than 280 characters. He now holds one of the world's most powerful megaphones.

Here's what you – and Musk's 110 million followers – need to know about his acquisition of the social media platform and his ownership of what he calls a "digital town square."

That tweet was quickly met with a reply from European Union Internal Markets Commissioner Thierry Breton to Musk, who is a regular critic of international regulators. 

Some far-right accounts see boost in followers, firm finds

As Elon Musk closed the deal to take over Twitter, some influential conservative figures saw spikes in new followers, according to data from digital investigations company Memetica.

Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, gained more than 18,000 new followers in the last 24 hours. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado), meanwhile, gained 18,679 new followers during the same period. And more than 3,700 accounts started following conservative media personality Candace Owens.

Thousands of the accounts that have followed the far-right figures were new to Twitter, created shortly before the deal closed, according to Memetica. 

Meanwhile, as reported by the New York Times, data from social media analytics firm Social Blade showed that accounts for progressive politicians and celebrities including former President Barack Obama, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow were losing followers Friday.

Antisemitism spreads on Twitter after Musk takeover, ADL says

The ADL Center on Extremism said it identified a coordinated effort to spread antisemitic content on Twitter following Musk’s takeover. 

In the course of 24 hours, the ADL said more than 1,200 tweets and retweets propagated antisemitic memes.

The effort began Thursday via an anonymous post on 4chan, which gave instructions on how to spread the content. The post was then shared on several extremist Telegram channels, according to the ADL.

“This strategic spread of hateful content on @Twitter warrants concern for how extremists view potential changes to Twitter's content rules,” the organization tweeted. “The campaign also follows weeks of #antisemitic discourse being spread by public figures.”

– Jessica Guynn

Musk's many jobs: How many companies does he run now?

With the takeover of Twitter, Musk now runs five companies in multiple industries: electric vehicle maker Tesla, rocket and satellite company SpaceX, tunneling company The Boring Company and neuroscience startup Neuralink.

Investors worry that the competing demands on his time are stretching Musk too thin, particularly at a time when Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX all face challenges. 

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Tesla has acknowledged in regulatory filings that its dependence on Musk is a risk factor.

“Although Mr. Musk spends significant time with Tesla and is highly active in our management, he does not devote his full time and attention to Tesla,” the company said. 

But Musk’s energizer-bunny pace has not appeared to put a damper on Tesla, the world’s most valuable car company, and SpaceX, one of the U.S.’s most valuable startups.

Musk acknowledges that the intense workload gets to him.

“It would be nice to have a bit more free time on my hands, as opposed to just working day and night from when I wake up till when I go to sleep seven days a week. It’s pretty intense,” he said last year during a Tesla analyst briefing.

– Jessica Guynn

How did Elon Musk pay for Twitter?

Musk in April pledged $46.5 billion to finance the acquisition’s $44 billion price tag plus closing costs.

The billionaire is using a combination of cash, bank loans and investment funds to finance the deal.

Musk, who already owned nearly 10% of Twitter in market shares, is contributing more than $27 billion in cash for the deal after selling off more than $15 billion worth of Tesla shares earlier this year.

Another $13 billion is backed by bank loans. Lenders include Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Mizuho, Morgan Stanley, MUFG and Societe Generale. 

Then there's $5.2 billion from equity investors:

·       $25 million from active investment firm A.M. Management & Consulting

·       $400 million from AH Capital Management, a VC firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz

·       $360 million from SpaceX and Airbnb investor Aliya Capital Partners LLC  

·       $100 million from investment adviser BAMCO 

·       $500 million from cryptocurrency exchange Binance

·       $250 million from Brookfield, an alternative investment management company

·       $100 million from SpaceX and Tesla investor DFJ Growth IV Partners

·       $316 million from investment advisor Fidelity Management & Research Company 

·       $5 million from Honeycomb Asset Management, a private investment firm led by  David Fiszel 

·       $30 million from wealth management company Key Wealth Advisors

·       $1 billion from Lawrence J. Ellison Revocable Trust, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison’s trust

·       $25 million from  consumer investment company Litani Ventures

·       $375 million from Qatar Holding, a global investment house controlled by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund  

·       $800 million from the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital Fund, which also invested in The Boring Company  

·       $150 million from investment banking firm Strauss Capital 

·       $8.5 million from Tresser Blvd 402  

·       $700 million from VyCapital, a global technology investment firm that invested in The Boring Company

·       $100 million from investment firm Witkoff Capital

There were also nearly 35 million shares valued at $1.89 billion transferred from Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal.

Musk says Twitter is forming content moderation council 

Musk tweeted Friday that he'll be "digging in" on lifting shadow bans and rolling back restrictions on users. He later tweeted that Twitter would form a content moderation council "with widely diverse viewpoints."

"No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes," Musk said. 

Twitter already has a council that advises on content moderation. It was not clear what would become of it.

Facebook's Oversight Board offered to " discuss Twitter's plans in more detail with the company."

“Independent oversight of content moderation has a vital role to play in building trust in platforms and ensuring users are treated fairly," the board said in a statement. This is a model we have been proving since 2020."

– Jessica Guynn

Is Musk laying off Twitter employees? 

Right after the deal closed Thursday, several executives including the CEO were fired. 

On Friday, people who identified themselves as employees were seen leaving the company’s San Francisco headquarters carrying boxes, according to CNBC.

But some Twitter employees speculated on company Slack channels that the departures were a hoax, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

Not sure if you want to stay on Twitter or what to keep from your account?

Many of Twitter's estimated 250 million or so active users – out of its about 400 million registered users – are now wondering what could happen to their personal data on a platform owned by Musk.

While some have committed to deleting their profiles entirely, others are waiting on the sidelines to see how the company might use their highly personal information or are leaning in further to up their presence now that content moderation is changing.

Not sure which one is right for you? Check out our tutorials on how to stay safe online from harassment, download your Twitter content or leave the site altogether.

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– Riley Gutiérrez McDermid

How to delete Twitter data

Twitter handles some 500 million to 700 million tweets a day, which adds up to roughly 12 terabytes of data every 24 hours.

That's a huge risk if that data falls into the wrong hands, Arthur Herman, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, recently wrote in Forbes – and Twitter had big data breaches before all of that information became Musk's.

In July, a breach exposed the email address and phone number of 5.4 million Twitter profiles. At that time, Twitter recommended anyone trying to stay anonymous should not link a publicly known phone number or email to their Twitter account.

Then in August, whistleblower Peiter Zatko exposed what he said was lax security at Twitter, which could make the company’s data vulnerable to foreign infiltration as well as improper use and storage of user data.  

Now all that data – including your direct messages because they are not end-to-end encrypted – belongs to Elon Musk.  

The data Twitter collects and saves includes your tweets, likes, direct messages, ad clicks, followers and those you’re following. If you’ve granted access, it can also collect information from your phone’s contact list. 

If you’re concerned about your data privacy or considering leaving Twitter, here are a few things you can do: 

To delete your account go to Settings → Your Account → Deactivate Your Account. This will not delete your data immediately because Twitter holds onto your data for at least 30 days in case you change your mind.  

Before deleting, you may want to try a few other solutions: 

Back up your tweets by going to Settings → Your Account → Download an Archive of Your Data. 

You can delete all your old tweets, but not through Twitter itself. Use a third-party app like Tweetdelete.net. It can also delete all your old likes. Twitter says deleted tweets are not publicly available but it’s unclear how long they’re saved on the company’s servers. 

If you’ve used Twitter DMs for private conversations you want to remove, you can delete an individual message from your account, but it will still exist for the other people in the conversation. 

Lock down your account completely so only your followers can see them:

Do this by going to Settings → Privacy and Safety → Audience and Tagging, then select Protect Your Tweets. Or you can stay public but protect your account from harassment by muting and blocking certain types of profiles.

Go to Settings → Privacy and Safety → Mute and Block → Muted Notifications and you can choose to mute, for example, new accounts which could be spam or bots.  

– Katie Wedell

Trump says Twitter now in 'sane hands'

Former president Donald Trump also weighed in on the Twitter deal Friday, saying in a post on his own social media platform, Truth Social, that he considers Musk's takeover to have placed the platform in "sane hands."