Ever since billionaire Elon Musk took over social media giant Twitter in a $44 billion deal, he has been affecting changes at the top of the company and restructuring the core team. CEO of Twitter Parag Agrawal, legal executive Vijaya Gadde, CFO Ned Segal, and general counsel Sean Edgett were asked to leave after Musk completed the acquisition of the company.
Apart from roping in Indian-origin technology executive Sriram Krishnan to help him run Twitter and to help with the revamp, there are reports that a few friends, supporters, and advisors of Musk are involved in the functioning of the social media giant.
According to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk sacked the board of directors of the company and made him the sole board member.
Jason Calacanis, the venture capitalist, had recently said he is hanging out at Twitter and trying to be as helpful as possible during the transition phase.
Musk's team also includes the head of his family office Jared Birchall, another venture capitalist David Sacks, and his lawyer Alex Spiro apart from Calacanis and Krishnan.
CNBC reported that more than 50 employees of Musk's other company, Tesla, have been asked to work for Twitter. A few of the Tesla engineers— Ashok Elluswamy, who is the director of software development at Tesla; Maha Virduhagiri who is the senior director of software engineering, and Tesla's senior security intelligence manager Jake Nocon, among others—have been enlisted specifically to work with the social media company.
According to a New York Times report, Musk and his team of advisers may be planning to "trim company's ranks" and looking at bringing in several changes to the mobile app of Twitter.
There are also reports that Musk is planning to ask users to pay for Twitter verification. A venture capitalist working with Musk tweeted a poll asking how much users would be willing to pay for the blue check mark that Twitter has always used to verify higher-profile accounts so other users know it's really them. Responding to this, Musk, in a tweet, said "interesting."
The NYT report said a team of engineers has already been assigned to work on the 'Varification' programme of Twitter. There are reports that users may be asked to pay $20 for retaining the verified status.
Mr. Musk’s advisers have also assigned a team of Twitter’s engineers to work on the 'Verification' programme. According to a CNBC report, Musk wants work on redesigning subscription software completed by November first week. Internal communications of the company revealed that some of the employees have been asked to be on 12-hour shifts.
According to Calacanis, a plan is already on to reduce the number and visibility of boats and spam on the platform.
Musk had recently asked on Twitter if he should bring back the short video platform Vine, which Twitter had bought and later shut down.
—With inputs from agencies
