October 27, 2022: Musk officially becomes the new owner of Twitter and tweets “the bird is freed.”
November 1, 2022: Musk confirms plans to change the ‘Blue Tick’ verification system on Twitter, for a reduced subscription fee of $8 a month.
November 4, 2022: Musk lays off half of Twitter’s workforce as a supposed cost-cutting measure, claiming he had “no choice.”
November 9, 2022: Musk launches ‘Twitter Blue’ subscription service that verifies accounts for a monthly fee.
November 11, 2022: The Twitter Blue service is on pause as accounts purchase verification and use it to impersonate brands and public figures.
November 12, 2022: Musk fires 80 percent of Twitter contractors without notice.
November 15, 2022: Musk fires employees who posted negative messages about him on the business messaging app Slack. The lawsuit between Musk and Twitter is dismissed.
November 16, 2022: Twitter staff are told they must sign a pledge to be able to remain in their roles where they would be “working long hours at high intensity” or receive three months of severance pay, resulting in a mass exodus.
November 18, 2022: A news message was projected at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco calling Musk a “space Karen,” a “mediocre manchild” and a “broke baby.”
November 23, 2022: A Twitter user reported that 5.4 million phone numbers and email addresses were leaked on the dark web, before his account was suspended.
November 26, 2022: The Financial Times revealed that 50 of the platform’s top 100 advertisers have paused their ads.
November 29, 2022: Platforms reported that Twitter is in the process of reinstating around 62,000 banned accounts, each of which has more than 10,000 followers.
December 12, 2022: Twitter Blue relaunches with a new Blue Tick review process.
January 11, 2023: Twitter starts automatically redirecting users to the “For You” tab, their algorithmic feed of tweets, every time they open the app.
February 8, 2023: Twitter expands the character limit to 4,000 for Twitter Blue subscribers in the US. Shortly after, the site encounters technical difficulties.
February 12, 2023: Musk orders staff to revamp Twitter’s tweet promotion algorithm after his Super Bowl tweet didn’t get enough impressions.
February 15, 2023: Twitter announces that it will remove SMS two-factor authentication (2FA) from the free version of Twitter, a decision that one security expert called “absurd” and will lead to “so many hacked accounts.”
February 25, 2023: Twitter reveals a new round of layoffs that reduced its workforce to fewer than 2,000 people, a sharp drop from 7,500 employees when the billionaire first took power in October.
March 28, 2023: Musk announces that he will prevent people from voting in Twitter polls or having their tweets appear in the For You tab if they don’t pay for Twitter Blue.
April 11, 2023: Musk gives an interview to the BBC at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, where he says he has been sleeping on the floor of the company’s offices. Musk also accused the interviewer of lying because he couldn’t back up allegations about hate speech on the platform.
June 21, 2023: Musk says he’s “prepared for a cage fight” with rival tech CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
July 1, 2023: Musk announces limits on the number of tweets users can see per day: 600 for people not signed up for Twitter Blue and 6,000 for Twitter Blue subscribers.
July 2023: Twitter changes its name to X, a recurring letter in Musk’s life and career.
September 18, 2023: Musk said he will probably soon charge a small fee for using Twitter/X.
November 15, 2023: Musk appears to endorse a tweet claiming that Jews have been “spurring anti-white hate,” leading to accusations of anti-Semitism.
December 21, 2023: X suffers a global interruption