Has Musk Killed Twitter?

In 2022, the world's richest person paid $44bn to remould the platform. A year on, even his followers are unconvinced, report Faiz Siddiqui, Rachel Lerman and Jeremy B Merrill

- Faiz Siddiqui, Rachel Lerman and Jeremy B Merrill

A year ago this month, Elon Musk turned to his favourite social media site with a question. "Is Twitter dying?" he asked. On the anniversary of his takeover bid, he may have his answer.

Twitter has been dramatically transformed under Musk, and few - even among those in the billionaire's corner - say the changes have been for the better. In recent weeks, government agencies, news organisations and powerful social media influencers have questioned the usefulness of the platform, with some major players publicly abandoning their accounts or telling users they can't rely on the site for urgent information.

Advertisers have fled in droves over Musk's policy changes and erratic behaviour on the platform, causing advertising revenue to drop in recent months by as much as 75 per cent, according to a person familiar with the matter who agreed, on condition of anonymity, to share sensitive internal information.

Rounds of lay-offs have left Twitter operating with a skeleton staff of 1,500-an 80 per cent reduction - and so riddled with bugs and glitches that the site can go down for hours at a time.

Meanwhile, the value of the company has cratered, Musk has admitted, to less than half of the $44bn he paid six months ago.

"I'd say the pain level of Twitter has been extremely high," Musk said in an interview last week with the BBC, assessing his first half-year in charge. "It's been really quite a stressful situation." But he added that advertisers were returning, and that he anticipates a roughly “break even" financial picture, stating: "Overall, I think the trend is very good."

Even some of his fans see things quite differently. Musk has garnered a reputation as a supposedly brilliant businessman with the Midas touch, but his erratic decision-making at Twitter has taken off some of the sheen.