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Elon Musk dissolved Twitter’s board and became the company’s “sole director.” All previous board members have been removed from that role, leaving only Musk as a director, according to a new filing. The move was made on Thursday as part of Mr Musk’s $44bn (£38bn) purchase of the company, according to the same SEC filing, which was made public on Monday. The board previously included its chairman, Bret Taylor, as well as recently ousted CEO Parag Agrawal. In total, it featured nine directors. It’s just one of the major changes Mr. Musk has already made within days of buying and taking over the company. Others include the proposal that it will create a board to review content moderation decisions, that it will lay off a significant number of employees and that it could allow previously banned users to return to the platform. According to multiple reports in the US, Twitter plans to raise the price of Twitter Blue from $5 (£4.30) to $20 (£17) a month, with verified users given 90 days to sign up or lose out their blue tick. Twitter has not commented on the plans, but Mr Musk responded to user questions on the platform about verification by saying “the whole verification process is being refreshed right now”. The verification system is currently designed to help users identify authentic and influential users on the platform, including government officials, sports stars, entertainment personalities, journalists, and major brands and organizations. It requires an account to be complete – meaning they have a name, picture and verified email address or phone number, have been active for the past six months and have a history of complying with Twitter’s rules. Twitter Blue is only available in select countries around the world – not including the UK – and allows those who sign up to access additional Twitter features, including in some regions the ability to edit tweets after they’ve been sent. There have been suggestions that Mr Musk will look at subscription options as a way to boost Twitter’s revenue, which currently depends heavily on advertising. After completing its $44 billion acquisition of the platform last week, Musk’s first few days at the helm of the company have been eventful. Amid growing speculation that it would allow banned accounts to return to the platform, it said on Friday that a content oversight board would be set up and no “major” content or reinstatement decisions would be made before it convenes. But in an exchange with another user, Mr Musk hinted at an approach to content moderation, suggesting that users select a movie-style age rating to filter content when using the site. “Being able to choose which version of Twitter you want is probably better, as it would be for a movie maturity rating,” he said. “The rating of the tweet itself could be self-selected and then modified by user comments. The owner of Tesla and SpaceX was also widely criticized for tweeting, before later deleting, a link to a conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of senior Democratic politician Nancy Pelosi. That incident has fueled further concerns about Mr Musk’s belief in absolute freedom of speech and a possible subsequent loosening of restrictions on content now that he has control of Twitter, which many campaigners have warned will see abuse. harassment and misinformation on the website. Over the weekend, he also denied reports that he planned to lay off Twitter workers before the start of next month to avoid certain payments. And Mr. Musk offered other phases of his potential plans for the company, including asking users in a poll on his Twitter page whether the company should bring back Vine, the short-form video app that Twitter shut down 2016 and was its early forerunner like TikTok – now a major rival to Twitter in the social space. Additional report from PA
