In late Novem­ber 2022, James Musk, amid the tumul­tuous atmos­phere fol­low­ing his takeover of Twit­ter, made sev­er­al high-pro­file account rein­state­ments, includ­ing those of Kathy Grif­fin, Jor­dan Peter­son, and the Baby­lon Bee, while main­tain­ing the ban on con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist Alex Jones. Musk intro­duced a “vis­i­bil­i­ty-fil­ter­ing” pol­i­cy, empha­siz­ing Twit­ter’s new approach: free­dom of speech would not equate to free­dom of reach, aim­ing to deboost and demon­e­tize neg­a­tive or hate­ful con­tent. Despite these changes, Musk faced chal­lenges with the account of Ye, for­mer­ly known as Kanye West, whose con­tro­ver­sial tweets led to his sus­pen­sion. Amidst these events, Musk con­tem­plat­ed the rein­state­ment of for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, ulti­mate­ly leav­ing the deci­sion to a pub­lic poll that favored Trump’s return.

This peri­od also saw sig­nif­i­cant ten­sions with­in Twit­ter’s man­age­ment, includ­ing the res­ig­na­tion of ad sales chief Robin Wheel­er, and a pro­nounced shift towards a more engi­neer­ing-dri­ven cul­ture under Musk’s direc­tive. Musk’s hands-on approach extend­ed to demand­ing code reviews from engi­neers in an effort to iden­ti­fy and retain top tal­ent, reflect­ing his belief in a lean, high­ly capa­ble team over a more exten­sive work­force. This lean approach result­ed in a dras­tic reduc­tion of Twit­ter’s staff, with the work­force dimin­ish­ing by approx­i­mate­ly 75%, mark­ing a stark trans­for­ma­tion from a nur­tur­ing work­place to one char­ac­ter­ized by a high-pres­sure, per­for­mance-dri­ven envi­ron­ment.

Despite con­cerns and pre­dic­tions of Twit­ter’s immi­nent col­lapse, the plat­form man­aged to sur­vive and adapt dur­ing this tumul­tuous peri­od. Musk’s risk-tak­ing and iter­a­tive approach demon­strat­ed resilience, even as Twit­ter faced poten­tial sta­bil­i­ty issues. His aggres­sive man­age­ment style and the sweep­ing lay­offs sparked exten­sive dis­cus­sions about the future of Twit­ter, its com­pa­ny cul­ture, and its place in the social media land­scape.

Amidst these inter­nal upheavals, Musk pub­licly chal­lenged Apple’s reduc­tion of adver­tis­ing on Twit­ter, ques­tion­ing its com­mit­ment to free speech. How­ev­er, advised by Lar­ry Elli­son and con­sid­er­ing the impor­tance of main­tain­ing a good rela­tion­ship with Apple for Twit­ter’s avail­abil­i­ty on the App Store, Musk sought to mit­i­gate ten­sions. His vis­it to Apple’s head­quar­ters under­scored a prag­mat­ic approach to resolv­ing poten­tial con­flicts, high­light­ing Musk’s recog­ni­tion of the strate­gic need to align with key indus­try play­ers despite pre­vi­ous con­fronta­tions.