For six months, Twitter teetered between owners; in October, possession of the media giant fell to Elon Musk. Since its change in ownership, the social platform has been in turmoil, from new pay-wall additions to mass layoffs, leaving users and former-employees in discontent. 

Immediately after Musk took over, three of the top executives of the company were let go and many other workers resigned. Over the month, executive layoffs continued and half of the rank-and-file staff were booted. 

“My team wasn’t touched by layoffs, but half of them had quit anyway,” former employee Steve Krenzel said in a tweet. “Twitter was having a mass exodus.” 

Under California’s “WARN” law, any mass layoff requires a mandatory 60-day notice. Former employees of Twitter have filed lawsuits against the company in hopes of receiving the promised back pay; instead, groups are being brought back to the team. 

“This whole Twitter ‘layoff, no wait, come back’ is so horribly bad it would be funny if it weren’t actual human people jerked around,” Twitter user thattracey said in a post. “That organizations don’t know, don’t care, or don’t understand who works for them, and the value delivered is infuriating.”

During the layoff period, Musk implemented a new verification system on the platform: Twitter Blue. This program allowed users to pay eight dollars per month to hold a verification check mark, a method previously reserved for prominent figures in news, entertainment, government, and other categories. 

This check-mark verification served as a way to combat rampant grandstanding within the app. However, with the introduction of a priced version, parody accounts have only increased, causing harsh repercussions to follow.

“A fake tweet courtesy of Twitter Blue wiped out billions in market value of Lockheed Martin in one day,” Twitter user lindyli said in a post. “A fake tweet wiped out billions in market value of Eli Lilly in one day. Who knew oligarch Elon Musk would help us take on the industrial military complex and Big Pharma?”

Within a few days of Twitter Blue’s introduction, the subscription faced a temporary shut down. After its recent return, widespread worries about its effects on the art community have resurfaced along with the more general concerns about the platform’s success under Musk’s direction. 

“Everything about what Elon Musk is doing on Twitter right now does not scream good business decisions,” senior Hanaan Kazia said. “It just seems like he’s being egotistical and greedy for more money. Instead, he’s losing advertisers and running the company into the ground.” 

Twitter is still in a state of turmoil, seeing as new regulations are implemented daily and major developments continue to become problematic. As each day passes, more and more people wonder if the website will survive the whirlwind of trouble, but for now, its fate remains uncertain.