Elon Musk: latest news on the Twitter acquisition

Elon Musk bought Twitter only two weeks ago, and amid enthusiasm and controversy, many factors have contributed to the discussion of some of the most important personalities, inside and outside the crypto world. 

It wasn’t only the mass layoffs caused by Musk to the detriment of thousands of Twitter employees, who lost their jobs overnight this week without official notice.

Now, the new CEO of Twitter, has expressed his approval to the employees who sold verification earlier. 

In addition, speculation began early on whether Twitter, after its acquisition by Elon Musk, would switch to using cryptocurrencies. As we know, the CEO of Tesla has been a big supporter of the blockchain world for years. 

Indeed, Musk is bullish on Dogecoin, the crypto he himself made prestigious, and owns millions of dollars of Bitcoin through Tesla. 

Why is Elon Musk on the side of those who sold Twitter’s verification status?

A recent thread by Elon Musk uncovered a pay-to-play scheme involving Twitter verification badges.

Twitter verification badges are coveted status symbols. These allow verified users to interact almost entirely with other verified users through a special reply card. 

Musk said that the system for assigning these badges was so flawed to the point that anyone could have purchased them from a third party. Reason being, the new CEO of Twitter immediately sided with those who had previously sold verification status. 

In response to Elon’s tweet, one user claimed that Twitter employees were selling verification for about $15,000. In addition, it appears that, for some accounts, Twitter would refuse to verify them through the standard application process and instead offer to do so privately at an exorbitant rate.

Twitter’s new CEO confirmed this allegation, saying he agreed with the reasons behind it. This came after Elon Musk fired half of the social platform’s staff just a day earlier and promised to sell verification for $8.

Should an investigation reveal the existence of a pay-to-play scheme in place at the company, there is no telling what punishments current or former Twitter employees might be subject to in the future.

Will Twitter switch to crypto after the Musk acquisition? Here’s what blockchain experts think 

After acquiring Twitter for a massive sum of 44 billion, Musk tweeted a photo of a dog wearing a T-shirt depicting the platform’s very iconic bird. 

Logically, the dog in question is the Shiba of Dogecoin. And naturally, the famous crypto pumped hard in response to these strategic moves. 

On the same day that this was happening, Musk again proposed the idea of charging users $8 per month for verified accounts. At that point, several people connected the dots.

Among the first, to speak was The CEO of Binance, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who told CNBC that plans for a paid subscription could very easily be implemented, globally, using cryptocurrencies as a means of payment.  

Zhao also talked about Binance’s $500 million contribution to the acquisition, saying cryptocurrencies need “a space at the table when it comes to free speech.”

For his part, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin joined the discussion to say that he believes in Musk’s subscription model, but that those who require the blue checkmark should undergo a thorough vetting.

Sriram Krishnan, general partner of venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a major investor in blockchain and Web3, shared a photo with his followers from Twitter’s San Francisco office.

Finally, Michael Saylor, the executive chairman of cloud software company MicroStrategy, the largest Bitcoin institutional whale, shared his two cents.

Those doubting Musk’s controversial purchase and why 

Despite a great deal of enthusiasm and positive opinions following Musk’s acquisition for Twitter, there was no shortage of controversy either. 

Indeed, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has not been one of Musk’s supporters this week. Yakovenko thinks Musk is wrong in blaming civil activist groups for undermining free speech and has distanced himself from Twitter’s new CEO in this line of thinking. 

However, the biggest discussions stem from the mass layoffs that Musk put in place soon after he bought Twitter. 

Indeed, for many people, Musk’s acquisition was all fun and games until the mass layoffs began. Images of a formal letter announcing the impending layoffs immediately went around the web.

Minutes later, New York Times technology reporter Kate Conger shared another official missive announcing the layoffs.

That’s when attorney Lisa Bloom stepped in, and she reported many reactions from Twitter employees. Bloom argues strongly that Musk’s layoffs are illegal under both federal law and in the state of California, where employers are required to give 60 days’ notice.

In particular, a former Twitter employee shared his shocking story, writing: 

“I woke up with no login / gmail / office and the laptop was remotely wiped. Were you fired without even a confirmation email while you slept? There is always someone new.”

This resulted in a class action lawsuit against Twitter’s new CEO in federal court in San Francisco by former employees. The lawsuit alleges that Twitter is violating federal and California laws by firing employees without notice.

This is already the second lawsuit against Musk following the one involving Tesla, which also occurred on the same grounds. However, Musk may have no reason to be concerned, since he won the first lawsuit without any problems and even called it “trivial.”