The entire story of Elon Musk and Twitter, so far

Twitter head of trust and safety Ella Irwin has resigned, she confirmed to Reuters, marking the departure of one of Elon Musk’s most important executives at Twitter. Irwin took over from Yoel Roth in November after Roth’s resignation earlier that month. Fortune’s Kylie Robison reported earlier on Thursday that Irwin’s Slack account appeared to be deactivated.

In her months-long tenure, Irwin oversaw some turbulent cycles at Twitter, including periods where Twitter has come under scrutiny for not doing enough to curb child exploitation. Irwin herself shared internal Twitter information with Bari Weiss as part of the “Twitter Files” reports and reportedly directed banning Twitter accounts that shared information about Musk’s private jet.

Look, Elon Musk just hosted the launch of Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign on Twitter Spaces, and I could say some things about hypocrisy — Musk insisting that “for Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral,” DeSantis promising to “hold big tech accountable.” But we’re all adults here. These men aren’t rational or consistent. They just want you to lick their boots, the big white baton twirler ones. So instead, let’s talk about the thing the Twitter Space made obvious: when it comes to politics, TV is still king.

The basic facts of yesterday’s announcement are pathetic. Musk’s first attempt at holding a Twitter Space failed when more than 600,000 users tuned in concurrently. (By comparison, BuzzFeed got 800,000 concurrent viewers when putting rubber bands on a watermelon in 2016 on Facebook Live, without the technical difficulties, and Travis Scott drew 12.3 million people in Fortnite, similarly without failures.) DeSantis managed to join another Space with David Sacks, a fellow Musk PayPal mafioso and the event’s moderator. That one drew as many as 300,000 listeners, allowing DeSantis to finally make his announcement via glorified conference call, complete with a questioner who had trouble unmuting.

Twitter is rolling out a handy feature that can help you discover new lists to follow. From the Lists tab on Twitter’s desktop site, you can now type a term into the newly added search bar and scroll through a bunch of related lists.

The feature should make searching for new lists a lot easier, as you previously could only create your own lists or view the lists that other people follow from their profiles. While Twitter also provides recommended lists, this doesn’t give you any control over the types of lists you’re seeing.

We finally have an idea of what Instagram’s rumored text-based Twitter competitor might look and feel like, as reported by Lia Haberman, who shared in her ICYMI Substack newsletter what appears to be a leaked marketing slide and details about the app.

The slide doesn’t give the app a separate name — instead, it just calls it “Instagram’s new text-based app for conversations” — but the app is apparently codenamed P92 or, alternately, Barcelona, according to Haberman. Users will be able to sign in with their Instagram username and password, and your followers, handle, bio, and verification will transfer over from the main app.

The world’s biggest ad agency no longer considers Twitter as a “high risk” platform now that Linda Yaccarino — NBCUniversal’s former head of advertising — is lined up to replace Elon Musk as Twitter CEO. According to sources speaking to the Financial Times, WPP-owned GroupM removed its “high risk” classification on Monday, and has informed its clients that the company is “cautiously optimistic” about Yaccarino’s appointment. 

GroupM designated Twitter as “high risk” last November and warned its clients against buying ads on the platform following Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover. At the time, the ad agency cited concerns like the numerous “verified” users impersonating high-profile Twitter accounts, and the exodus of Twitter executives leaving or being fired from the company. Other advertising agencies like IPG and Omnicom Media Group similarly recommended that their clients pause spending on Twitter ads during this time.

Elon Musk’s personal lawyer Alex Spiro sent a letter on behalf of Twitter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella that accuses Microsoft of violating Twitter’s developer agreement, as reported by The New York Times. In the Thursday letter (available in full below), Spiro claims that Microsoft may have been in violation of “multiple provisions” of Twitter’s developer agreement “for an extended period of time.”

Until recently, Microsoft had integrated Twitter’s APIs with some of its products — Twitter’s letter claims Microsoft operated “eight separate Twitter API apps” integrated with products like Xbox, Bing, and its ads platform. But it began pulling support for those APIs in April, including dropping clip sharing to Twitter from Xbox, likely due to Twitter’s new and generally more expensive API tiers.

In an interview aired on CNBC, Elon Musk called remote work “morally wrong” and “bullshit,” arguing it was unfair to those workers who can’t work from home.

Musk, who banned remote work at Twitter after acquiring the company, has not been shy about sharing his disdain about work from home policies. But in the interview, Musk was more animated than usual, arguing that remote work was counter-productive.

Twitter has a new CEO, and it’s former NBCUniversal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino. Elon Musk announced her appointment in a tweet, saying she “will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology.”

“I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!” Musk writes. “Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app.”

Update May 12th, 11:58AM ET: Elon Musk made it official, announcing Linda Yaccarino is the new CEO of Twitter.

Elon Musk says he has found a new CEO for Twitter and that “she” will start in a matter of weeks. It’s most likely going to be Linda Yaccarino, the current head of advertising and partnerships for NBCUniversal. 

Update May 12th, 11:55AM ET: Elon Musk made it official, announcing Linda Yaccarino is the new CEO of Twitter.

Elon Musk has announced plans for a new Twitter CEO but hasn’t said who it is. In a tweet on Thursday, Musk says that he has “hired a new CEO for X/Twitter” and that “she will be starting in ~6 weeks.” Musk will instead assume the role of executive chair and chief technology officer, “overseeing product, software & sysops” of Twitter.

Twitter is making some big changes to direct messages and expects to introduce encrypted DMs on Wednesday, according to Tuesday evening tweets from the company and owner Elon Musk.

Let’s start first with the immediate changes. As detailed in a tweet from the company’s support account, you can now reply to specific messages (which work like the in-line replies you might be familiar with in iMessage) and react to messages with any reaction instead of a limited few. I just downloaded the iOS app to my phone and both features were there. You can access them by pressing and holding on a specific message.

Just weeks after leaving Fox News amid the wreckage of its $787 defamation lawsuit settlement with Dominion over lies about the 2020 election, Tucker Carlson has announced his show is coming back soon in “a new version,” but this time, it’s on Twitter.

In a three-minute video haranguing the mainstream media circus he’s spent his career as a part of, Carlson insists that “the only one remaining” platform allowing free speech is Twitter, as opposed to the cable news outlets that he calls propaganda outlets.