Twitter’s new owner fired the company’s board of directors and became its sole board member, according to a company filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Musk later said on Twitter that the new panel setup is “temporary,” but did not elaborate. It also tests the waters by asking users to pay for verification. An entrepreneur who works with Musk posted a poll on Twitter asking how much users would be willing to pay for the blue check mark Twitter has historically used to verify higher-profile accounts so other users know they’re really them. Musk, whose account is verified, replied, “Interesting.” Critics have derided the badge, often awarded to celebrities, politicians, business leaders and journalists, as a symbol of the elite. But Twitter also uses the blue checkmark to verify activists and people who suddenly find themselves in the news, as well as little-known journalists at small publications around the world, as an additional tool to limit misinformation from impersonated accounts . “The entire verification process is being refreshed right now,” Musk tweeted on Sunday in response to a user who asked for help with verification. On Friday, meanwhile, Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said he and the Kingdom Holding Company had offered him a total of $1.89 billion in existing Twitter shares, making them the company’s biggest shareholder after Musk. The news raised concerns among some lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut. Murphy tweeted that he is asking the Committee on Foreign Investment — which reviews takeovers of American businesses by foreign buyers — to investigate the national security implications of the kingdom’s Twitter investment. “We should be concerned that the Saudis, who have a clear interest in suppressing political speech and influencing US policy, are now the second largest owner of a major social media platform,” Murphy tweeted. “There is a clear national security issue at stake, and CFIUS should do a review.” The story continues Having taken ownership of the social media service, Musk has invited a group of friends and investors from the tech world to help guide the San Francisco-based company’s transformation, which is likely to include a shake-up of its staff . Musk last week fired CEO Parag Agrawal and other top executives. There was uncertainty over whether and when larger-scale layoffs might begin. “I think there will be a lot of layoffs,” said Matthew Faulkner, an assistant professor of economics at San Jose State University. Faulkner noted the need to cut costs after Musk bought Twitter for a premium and the platform’s long-standing struggles to turn a profit. But Musk may also want to get rid of employees who don’t believe in his mission as quickly as possible so that those who remain feel safer. “You don’t want to have frantically scared employees working for you,” Faulkner said. “That doesn’t motivate people.” Those who have revealed they are helping Musk include Sriram Krishnan, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, who pledged in the spring to join Musk’s plan to buy the company and take it private. Krishnan, who is also a former Twitter product executive, said in a tweet that it is “a hugely important company and can have a big impact on the world, and Elon is the man to make it happen.” Jason Calakanis, the entrepreneur who tweeted the poll on whether users would pay for verification, said over the weekend that he’s “running around Twitter a little bit and just trying to be as helpful as possible during the transition.” Calacanis said the team “already has a very comprehensive plan to reduce the number (and visibility) of bots, spammers and bad actors on the platform.” And in Twitter’s poll, it asked whether users would pay between $5 and $15 a month to “get verified and get a blue checkmark” on Twitter. Twitter is currently free for most users because it depends on advertising for its revenue. Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion in April, but only closed the deal on Thursday night after his efforts to back out led to a protracted legal battle with the company. Musk’s lawyers are now asking the Delaware District Court to dismiss the case, according to a court filing released Monday. The two sides were supposed to go to trial in November if they didn’t close the deal by the end of last week. Musk has made several statements since the beginning of this year about how to fix Twitter, and it remains unclear which proposals he will prioritize. He promised to cut back on some of Twitter’s content restrictions to promote free speech, but said on Friday that no major decisions about content or the reinstatement of banned accounts would be made until a “content oversight board” with diverse views was formed. . He later qualified that remark, tweeting that “anyone suspended for minor and dubious reasons will be released from Twitter jail.” The head of a cryptocurrency exchange that invested $500 million in Musk’s acquisition of Twitter said he had many reasons to support the deal, including the possibility that Musk could turn Twitter into a company that supports cryptocurrencies and the concept known as Web3, the which many cryptocurrency enthusiasts envision. as the next generation of the Internet. “We want to make sure that crypto has a place at the table when it comes to free speech,” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao told CNBC on Monday. “And there are more tactical things, like we want to help bring Twitter to Web3 when it’s ready.” He said cryptocurrencies could be useful in solving some of Musk’s immediate challenges, such as his plan to charge a premium subscription for more users. “This can be done very easily, globally, using cryptocurrencies as a means of payment,” he said.
Associated Press writer Randall Chase contributed to this story. Matt O’brien and Barbara Ortutay, The Associated Press
