Elon Musk news - live: Musk dumps $4bn worth of shares in Tesla shares as personal wealth drops below $200bn

Twitter lays off staff around the world as Musk continues to attract criticism in his new position

Related: Trevor Noah tells Elon Musk how to make money from Twitter

Musk has been criticised for urging “independent-minded voters” to back Republican candidates in this week’s midterm elections.

The Tesla and SpaceX boss, who bought Twitter for $44 billion last month, told his 115m followers that “shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties”, and that voters should therefore limit a Democratic president by voting for a Republican Congress.

The move appeared to cause a price-drop in Tesla’s stock that caused Mr Musk’s net worth to drop below $200bn.

It is the latest episode in a week of chaos the San-Francisco-based social network, which reportedly may have to rehire some of the staff that it fired last week because it needs their expertise.

Mr Musk decided to lay off almost 50 per cent of Twitter staff, with the company’s employees alerted on their job status by email after barring their entrances to offices and cutting off their access to internal systems overnight.

Key Points

• Tesla stock plunges to new low as Elon Musk’s net worth drops below $200bn
• Jack Dorsey apologises to staff for layoffs
• ‘Unfortunately, there is no choice’: Elon Musk defends axing Twitter staff
• Fans react to Ryan Reynolds joining Tumblr amid Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover
• Elon Musk says ‘power to the people' after firing 50 per cent of Twitter employees
• Elon Musk blames activists for ‘massive drop’ in revenue as Twitter begins huge job cuts

[7 November 2022 22:16 · Io Dodds]

Twitter user growth at ‘all time high’ since Musk buyout

New users are flocking to Twitter in unprecedented numbers following Mr Musk’s takeover of the company, according to a new report in The Verge.

Journalist Alex Heath obtained an internal company document claiming that the social network’s growth in daily active users has hit “all time highs” since Mr Musk’s takeover, accelerating to more than 20 per cent.

That means an extra 15 million people have joined since late October, causing the site’s overall suer numbers to “cross the quarter billion mark” since June.

The document is an FAQ given to Twitter’s sales team for their converations with advertisers, many of whom have paused their spending or are considering doing so due to concerns about Mr Musk’s leadership. Hence, this might only represent the rosiest possible interpretation of Twitter’s data.

A third party report from the bot monitoring firm Bot Sentinel suggested that more than a million accounts may have been deactivated or suspened since Mr Musk’s takeover, although it could not tell how many of these accounts were automated.

Twitter’s advertiser FAQ also says that “levels of hate speech remain within historical norms, representing 0.2 per cent to 0.45 per cent of tweets per day among hundreds of millions.”

However, Twitter has never released public statistics for the prevalence of hate speech on its service, so we have no way to compare that with the past.

[7 November 2022 21:31 · Io Dodds]

Tesla stock plunges to 52-week low

Shares in Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla have plunged to their lowest point in more than a year amid the ongoing chaos at Twitter.

Having started the day priced at $208.79, Tesla’s stock dropped by about 6 per cent to $197.14 by the close of trading on Monday – the lowest price since May 2021.

“Fundamentally, the weakness in Tesla stock has to be blamed on Twitter,” wrote the financial magazine Barron’s on Monday. “More specifically, the weakness has to be blamed on Elon Musk, who now runs both companies.”

Read the full story here from my colleague Bevan Hurley.

[7 November 2022 20:39 · Io Dodds]

Elon under fire for sharing Nazi soldier meme

The meme tweeted by Elon Musk this morning might have struck some as innocuous, featuring a black and white photo of a soldier with a cage full of carrier pigeons and the caption “3 unread messages”.

However, hawk-eyed Twitter users quickly pointed out that the soldier in question is actually a member of the army of Nazi Germany, know as the Wehrmacht.

According to Getty Images, the photo shows a Nazi soldier during the German invasion of France in May 1940, when portable radios were not yet carried by all soldiers.

[7 November 2022 19:47 · Io Dodds]

Musk urges independents to vote GOP

Elon Musk has been criticised for urging “independent-minded voters” to back Republican candidates in this week’s midterm elections.

The Tesla and SpaceX boss, who bought Twitter for $44 billion last month, told his 115m followers that “shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties”, and that voters should therefore limit a Democratic president by voting for a Republican Congress.

In April, he said that Twitter “must be politically neutral” in order “to deserve public trust”.

My colleague Gustaf Kilander in Washington, DC has the full story.

[7 November 2022 19:00 · Adam Smith]

Elon Musk’s cohort does not understand free speech

David Sacks, the founding chief operating officer and product leader of PayPal, who worked with Elon Musk, has claimed impersonation is free speech.

“Impersonation is not free speech. Fraud is not protected by the First Amendment”, he tweeted.

Ari Cohn, a prominent free speech lawyer, offered a rebuttal: “Impersonating someone on Twitter isn’t fraud. You should feel bad about this deeply uninformed tweet.”

He continued: “Furthermore, parody is protected by the First Amendment, and none of the exceptions you think you know anything about say otherwise. Stick to venture capitalizing. Leave the law to people who know what they are talking about.”

[7 November 2022 18:38 · Io Dodds]

Whoopi Goldberg says ‘I’m out'

The actress and TV host Whoopi Goldberg has said she’ll be staying off Twitter after Elon Musk’s takeover.

“So it has been a little over a week since Elon Musk took over Twitter and the place, it’s a mess,” said Ms Goldberg on her TV show The View on Monday morning.

“I’m getting off. I’m getting off today because I just feel like, you know, it’s so messy... I’m going to get out, and if it settles down and I feel more comfortable, maybe I’ll come back. But as of tonight, I’m done with Twitter."

Ms Goldberg has around 1.6m followers on Twitter, although she does not tweet very often.

[7 November 2022 18:00 · Adam Smith]

Elon Musk is doubling down on his claim that ‘activists’ are ruining Twitter’s advertising aims.

“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists. Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America,” tweeted Mr Musk on Friday.

Lou Paskalis, the MMA global president, explained to Mr Musk the concerns of some advertisers - especially in the wake of his firings. Mr Musk then blocked Mr Paskalis; he was unblocked sometime later.

However, Elon Musk has still said he has claims against the activists.

[7 November 2022 17:30 · Adam Smith]

What is Mastodon?

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has pushed users to alternative platforms, including a perculiar one called Mastodon.

The social media site has reportedly gained over 230,000 in the wake of Mr Musk’s buyout, with a total of 655,000 users.

However, Mastodon is not as simple to use as Twitter - despite looking superficially similar - and users may need some guidance in getting the most out of the site.

[7 November 2022 17:00 · Adam Smith]

Elon Musk fired Twitter’s human rights team

Elon Musk ‘s job cuts hit Twitter’s entire human rights team.

The mass layoffs came as Mr Musk admitted that “a number of major advertisers have stopped spending on Twitter” since his takeover, with firms such as GM, Audi and General Mills pausing their advertising after the takeover.

Shannon Raj Singh, the former human rights counsel at the company, took to Twitter on Friday to confirm that she and her team had been ousted.

“Yesterday was my last day at Twitter: the entire Human Rights team has been cut from the company,” she wrote.

[7 November 2022 16:30 · Adam Smith]

Irish premier Micheal Martin has criticised the way in which staff were let go at Twitter, saying that it was “not acceptable” and was “fairly unprecedented”.

“We are concerned, and our concern is there for the employees of Twitter,” the Taoiseach told reporters in Co Tipperary.

Twitter is letting a significant number of staff go – reported to be as high as half its workforce – as part of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s dramatic takeover of the social media giant.

“There seems to be a fairly unprecedented approach being adopted here to a global workforce and that’s manifesting itself in Ireland.

“What I would say is no matter who you are or what sector you are in, one must always treat people with dignity and respect, and the employees at Twitter deserve to be treated with respect.”