Musk buys Twitter
The public square of the 2010s becomes one man's private property.
- When
- Known to
- ± 12 hours
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
Elon Musk completed a 44-billion-dollar purchase on 27 October 2022 after months of trying to withdraw from his own offer. He cut roughly 80% of staff, dismantled the verification system, reinstated banned accounts and renamed the service X. Advertisers left, usage fragmented across Mastodon, Bluesky and Threads, and the episode became the clearest demonstration that the infrastructure of public discourse sat in private hands.