In a video that is widely circulated on the Internet,
Musk said without hesitation that
will "copy WeChat" directly.
On October 26th local time, Musk walked into Twitter headquarters in a sluice in his arms. He then wrote in a video tweet, "Go to Twitter headquarters and let it sink in! (let that sink in.)"
A day later, Musk officially became the new owner of Twitter.
Reviewing this acquisition, the process is eye-catching. Musk first proposed the acquisition and then announced the termination. Twitter first announced the launch of the "Poison Pill Plan" to resist the acquisition, but then stated that it had reached an agreement with Musk to accept the acquisition.
Later, both sides had to go to court for a while, but when the trial was about to begin, Musk proposed to advance the transaction at a price of $54.2 per share.
When people thought this drama was about to come to an end, the sequel came again: Musk began to promote "996" in a high-profile manner, and started intra-volume ...
1 Crazy tug-of-war
On April 14 this year, Musk publicly stated that he wanted to acquire Twitter. On the same day, he wrote a letter to the chairman of Twitter and disclosed the content through the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
This letter only has 4 paragraphs, and cherishing words are like gold, but it is meaningful.
The first paragraph value: "I want to acquire 100% of Twitter's stock because it has the potential to become a global platform for freedom of speech."
The second paragraph showdown: "Twitter's situation is not good now, I want to be the master of Twitter."
The third paragraph is sweet date + big stick: "I want to use cash to acquire all Twitter stocks at a price of US$54.2 per share (about RMB 400). If not, I will reconsider the identity of shareholders."
As we all know, Musk was previously the largest shareholder of Twitter, holding 9.2% of the stock. He used the first half of the third paragraph to show that "my purchase price is 54% premium to the original purchase price, and the total purchase price is US$44 billion." This is sweet date. Then, he used the second half to indicate, "If the acquisition fails, I will sell Twitter stocks and short the Twitter stock price." This is a big stick. The fourth paragraph of
is concise and concise: "You are not good, I will tap the potential of Twitter."
In the face of Musk's acquisition, Twitter made a defensive posture - implementing the "poison pill plan". The plan sets that when a party holds more than a certain proportion of its shares, new shares will be issued automatically at a low price, so that the acquirer's equity will be diluted again and again.
But just a few days later, Twitter announced an agreement with Musk to sell Twitter for $54.2 per share and a total price of $44 billion.
I thought the acquisition curtain would fall, but a new round of competition between the two sides was staged. On May 13, Musk stopped the acquisition due to the number of fake users.
In the following two months, the two sides argued back and forth over the issue of data release. It was not until July that Musk officially announced the cessation of acquisitions.
But at this time Twitter stopped doing it. In the same month, Twitter formally sued Musk, demanding that he execute an original acquisition agreement worth $44 billion, and specifically emphasized that Musk's reasons for stopping the acquisition were all "excuses."
At this point, outsiders seem to have a tug-of-war between the two sides that "Musk doesn't want to buy it, he's rushing to sell it on Twitter." But is this really the case?
According to US media reports, after Musk re-promoting the acquisition, he privately asked Twitter to reduce the acquisition price by 30%, but was rejected.
Finally, at the end of October, Musk acquired 100% of Twitter's equity at the price he had agreed to, completing privatization, and Twitter officially delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.
Then, Musk posted on social media that "the bird is freed", meaning "twitter is free."
1 Vigorously promote "996"
Twitter is free, but Twitter employees are "crying".
Recently, the life of employees at the Twitter headquarters has not been easy, and the crazy overtime culture and a wave of layoffs are coming one after another. Every Twitter user faces a dilemma of "volume or run".
As early as early last month, when the offensive and defensive battle between Twitter acquisition was coming to an end, there were rumors in the market that "if Musk's acquisition is successful, he will lay off 75% of his employees." Although he personally denied the rumors, the market's expectations for layoffs did not weaken.
As expected, at the end of October, less than a week after Musk took over Twitter, Bloomberg disclosed the news that "Twitter will lay off 50% of its employees."
In the past two days, the employees who were laid off have moved their cartons one after another. Daniel, a data engineer who has worked for Twitter for six years, said in an interview: "Musk has fired my entire team."
"I'm really worried that it's really a cultural change. There are leaders who are more diverse and inclusive in terms of regulation and are leaving. In a week, what you'll see is a different Twitter."
There are also several executives on this round of layoffs. According to Reuters , Twitter CEO Agraval, Chief Financial Officer Siegel and Legal Affairs and Policy Director Gard have left the company. Musk's reason is that "these three people are engaging in zombie fans and navy soldiers on Twitter."
Yesterday, Musk also dissolved the board of directors to make himself the only director.
The employees who were laid off were miserable, and the employees who were left behind were not easy.
Musk has always been known for his workaholics. His two companies, Tesla and SpaceX, have overtime education.
Josie Bohm, an employee who has worked at SpaceX, wrote on the external version of Zhihu Quora: "For me and my colleagues, working more than 12 hours a day for seven days a week is normal. In order to keep up with the work progress, you will work for a long time. If no one forces you to rest, you will continue to work."
Musk has a famous saying: "Nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week. (Changing the world is not something that can only work 40 hours a week.)"
It is not difficult to find that Musk is a workplace PUA master dressed in the guise of "the king of scrolls".
Previously, a Tesla employee missed an event because of the birth of his child. Musk immediately sent him an email: "This is not an excuse. You need to figure out what is more important. We are changing the world and changing history. If you don't plan to do it all, then get out."
He also said in an email asking for resumption of work: "If I were the same as you (not going to the office), Tesla would have gone bankrupt long ago." At SpaceX, he said to employees who want to rest for their family: "After we go bankrupt, you will have more time to spend with your family."
Now, Twitter employees have appreciated the style of the new boss. Twitter allows working from home, but Musk vaguely stated when he communicated with Twitter employees in June: "It is recommended to return to the company's office, but employees with excellent work can work from home."
Many people speculate that Twitter's home office culture will end in Musk. Because Tesla's "work from home" policy is: work at least 40 hours a week in the office. In terms of conversion, it is exactly 5 days a week and 8 hours a day, and this is still "at least".
However, overtime culture and canceling work from home may just be the beginning for Twitter employees. It is still unknown whether Musk will take action on employees' stocks, benefits, and holidays.
3 Is Twitter acquiring to copy WeChat?
Letting employees work overtime is not the purpose of Musk's acquisition of Twitter. In fact, he has always had a big plan in his mind.
In June this year, Musk publicly compared Twitter and WeChat on the Twitter employee forum, saying: "WeChat combines social media with payment, gaming and even taxi-hailing functions, and Twitter should also increase its practicality." In a video that is widely circulated on the Internet, Musk said without hesitation that he would directly "copy WeChat".
However, WeChat is not the only Chinese APP that Musk aims at.
Just a few hours ago, Musk said on Weibo that he "has become an SVIP user", which is a paid advanced membership service announced by Weibo just 5 days ago.
It is reported that Twitter's blue authentication charging function is similar to Weibo SVIP. Musk is planning to raise the fees for Twitter Blue certified users. The reason why
is targeting many Chinese apps is because Musk is committed to launching a national-level app for the West - the super app (everything app), referred to as X. “Buying Twitter is creating X,” he once said publicly.
Musk founded an online payment company X.com in 1999.Later, the company was acquired by PayPal. At present, PayPal has become the largest online payment service provider in the United States.
When he created X.com, Musk had a relatively grand vision for it, but he was forced to sell it due to restrictions on many factors at that time, which made him feel a lot of regret.
With the development of mobile Internet, Musk believes that X.com's former vision has the opportunity to start from scratch, and the acquisition of Twitter is a key step.
In addition, Musk said that the acquisition of Twitter was also intended to "create a more relaxed free speech policy", but many people did not agree with it, thinking that he was intended to "enhance his influence in the public opinion field."
Many politicians congratulated Musk on this acquisition. It is worth mentioning that former Russian President Medvedev and former US President Trump also congratulated him respectively. Trump's Twitter account was previously banned.
· Trump was blocked.
Currently, Musk is becoming the judge on American social media. Many people asked him to unblock his account, "the people who shouted for justice surrounded Musk."
Who wants to "pardon" and who wants to continue to ban it? This is a problem Musk has to face. He knew very well that there, the standards of freedom of speech were not the same for people with different positions.
In Musk's imagination, people of different beliefs on Twitter can debate with each other in a healthy way. But in reality, once the platform relaxes content review, viciousness, hatred, extremism and false information will spread. The deterioration of the content of the
platform will inevitably lead to a decrease in advertising revenue. Recently, General Motors in the United States has suspended advertising on Twitter. The outside world speculated that this move is precisely because of "concern about the future atmosphere of Twitter."
As we all know, the difficulty of Twitter monetization is a long-term problem. If advertising revenue drops again at this time, the situation will undoubtedly make things worse.
Twitter acquisition is the second largest acquisition in the world. Some people believe that in this acquisition, the value of economic interests and influence are already unequal. It is still difficult to tell whether the winner is Musk or Twitter.
But judging from Musk's half-year-long "Twitter acquisition offensive and defensive battle", he believes that Twitter has the value of winning.
As the drama ends, it is not difficult to speculate that the acquisition of Twitter is obviously not an immediate intention to Musk.
Perhaps as Chinese netizens said when commenting on Musk: "He is an entrepreneur and ambitious."
Just acquired Twitter
Musk wanted to "resurrect" short video applications to fight TikTok
On October 31, Twitter's new CEO Oct. 31, Elon Musk (Elon Musk ) launched a poll to netizens: Should I "resurrect" short video application Vine?
Vine is a short video sharing application under Twitter and was closed in 2016.
3
34344444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444 More than 70% of netizens voted in favor. In the comment section of
, a YouTube super internet celebrity left a comment: "If you resurrect Vine and compete with TikTok, that's so interesting."
Musk replied: "How can we make Vine better than TikTok?" It was revealed in his words that he had begun to plan Twitter's short video business.
Elon Musk’s Twitter screenshot
After half a year of tug-of-war, after officially completing the $44 billion acquisition last week, Musk, the world’s richest man, officially took over Twitter and began drastic reforms. On his first day of office, he fired his former CEO, CFO and other executives, and revealed that he planned to cut 75% of Twitter's employees and restore the personal account of former US President Trump.
But even if the new leader is replaced, Twitter still faces a serious crisis.
According to Twitter's last financial report, Twitter's revenue in the second quarter of this year was US$1.18 billion, a year-on-year decline of 1%, and a net loss of US$270 million. Twitter user growth is also on the decline.
How to lead Twitter out of the dilemma, Musk turned his attention to TikTok.
As the most popular short video platform overseas, TikTok has attracted the attention of a large number of young people and has become the target of major technology companies following suit.The old rival Facebook copied TikTok almost intact and launched its own short video product Reels. Video giant YouTube has launched the short video app Shorts, which looks very similar to TikTok from the interface to the functions.
But few people remember that the earliest short video application in the US market was Vine, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012.
It is reported that Vine could allow people to shoot short videos of six seconds in length and then quickly share and spread on social networks. One day after its release, Vine became the first place in the App Store social application. After a brief glory of
, Vine's monthly new users fell in 2014, and this decline has not been reversed since then. In 2016, Twitter announced the closure of Vine.
After Vine was shut down for 6 years, his former boss Twitter also changed his new owner. Vine, swept into the garbage dump of history, returns to Musk and his fans' vision.
Today, when the short video market is in a red ocean, can Vine take on the heavy responsibility of reviving Twitter and fighting TikTok?
column editor: Zhang Wu Text editor: Cheng Pei Title image source: Xinhua News Agency Photo editor: Cao Liyuan
Source: Author: Global People, Reference News
