Everything that's happened to X, formerly known as Twitter, in the 2 years since Elon Musk bought it
It’s been two years since Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, bought the social media platform formerly known as Twitter for $44 billion. The company, now called X, has seen thousands of employees laid off, issues with AI-generated content and misinformation run amok and an overwhelming number of design and function changes since Musk took over.
After some legal back-and-forth with the company, Musk officially became the owner of Twitter as of Oct. 27, 2022. He immediately fired Twitter’s CEO, CFO, general counsel and the head of legal, trust and safety. Days later, he delisted the company from the New York Stock Exchange, which freed him from having to listen to boards and shareholders when making decisions.
“The bird is free,” he posted.
Let’s take a look at how dramatically the platform has changed since Musk took over.
November 2022
A week after starting, Musk announces there would be more major layoffs across the company. NBC News reported that the first wave targeted teams primarily responsible for monitoring misinformation and prohibited content on the platform. A few weeks later, as many as 20 engineers were fired — some, allegedly, for making critical comments about Musk.
Twitter rolls out its $7.99 subscription service so any user can pay for a blue checkmark verification on their profiles. This eliminated Twitter’s original verification system, which ensured high-profile accounts — celebrities, businesses and journalists — wouldn’t be impersonated and used to spread misinformation.
January 2023
Third-party Twitter clients like Tweetbot get suspended from the platform. Tweetbot was a separate app that claimed to enhance the user’s Twitter experience, like showing feeds without ads or promoted content and allowing users to temporarily mute people, keywords or topics.
February 2023
Musk says Twitter is going to start charging $100 a month for developers to access Twitter’s application program interface (API). Twitter’s API was previously free. Developers previously could use Twitter’s API to create third-party services and tools, like Tweetbot.
April 2023
Twitter officially shuts down its original blue checkmark verification system. Users who had been verified through the original process now lose their checkmark, unless they pay for Musk’s subscription service.
May 2023
Twitter launches a Community Notes feature for images in posts, where users can flag if something is Photoshopped or AI-generated.
Musk appoints Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s new CEO. Twitter’s full-time employee count is around 1,000, down from 7,500 employees when Musk first took over.
June 2023
Paid subscribers are now allowed to write 25,000-character long posts. According to the New York Times, Twitter’s ad revenue is down 59% from April 2022 to May 2023.
July 2023
Musk announces he is changing the name from Twitter to X and getting rid of the iconic bird logo.
August 2023
Musk says X will start keeping ad revenue from content creators who are not subscribed to the platform’s Twitter Blue, which Musk will later rename X Premium. (At the time, to qualify for the program, creators need to be at least 18 years old, have a minimum of 500 followers and have at least 15 million “organic impressions” on posts within the last three months, Business Insider reported.)
X also announces it will lift its ban on paid political ads. The platform originally banned these ads in 2019 before Musk took over.
September 2023
The European Union Commission finds that X has the highest amount of Russian disinformation out of the most-used social media platforms.
Similarweb, a traffic analysis and data aggregation company, publishes a report that finds X’s global traffic is down 14% from September 2022.
October 2023
X no longer displays headlines on articles that are shared in X posts. X also shuts down the Circles feature, which allowed users to post to a smaller, more exclusive audience.
Ebiquity, a media investment analysis company, releases a report finding that a majority of X’s biggest-spending advertisers have stopped advertising since Musk took over.
November 2023
X changes its For You newsfeed algorithm to highlight smaller accounts.
December 2023
Musk decides to reinstate Alex Jones and Infowars’ X accounts after running a user poll. Jones, a conspiracy theorist, and his media brand were permanently banned from Twitter in 2018 for posting abusive content.
January 2024
Nonconsensual, deepfake pornographic photos of Taylor Swift garner millions of views before X takes them down.
X temporarily suspends several accounts belonging to journalists and podcasters who have been critical of Musk. They were later reinstated.
March 2024
X experiments with “not suitable for work” (NSFW) groups where creators can share adult content with specific users and fans.
X also launches an audio and video calling service.
Apil 2024
In an effort to curtail X’s growing bot problem, Musk announces plans for new X users to pay a small fee in order to enable posting.
X also allows influential creators — who have more than 2,500 verified followers — free blue verification checks on their profiles.
May 2024
“Twitter.com” now redirects to the “X.com” domain.
June 2024
X privatizes “likes” — meaning users cannot see what posts people are liking on the platform. Previously, on someone’s profile, there was a tab that allowed visitors to see what posts they were interacting with.
X officially allows users to post adult and graphic content on the platform, as long as it is consensually produced and labeled accordingly. This includes AI-generated content.
July 2024
X now offers the option to request a Community Note on posts they believe have questionable claims or misinformation. Previously, designated contributors were responsible for finding posts that required Community Notes — with this new rule, if a certain number of users flag a post, the contributors will be notified.
September 2024
X announces it will soon remove the option to block public accounts. This means if someone has a public X account and is blocked by another user, their posts will still be visible. Previously, blocking someone would hide their profile and their posts.
Users with iOS software can edit direct messages after sending them.
October 2024
X changes its terms of service (to take effect on Nov. 15) so that AI can train using public posts. Before the update, X users had the option to opt out of sharing data for AI training.