Elon Musk said Monday (May 8) that accounts that have been inactive for several years will be removed from Twitter, his latest announcement aimed at boosting the platform. “We are eliminating accounts that have not been active at all for years, so you will probably see your number of subscribers drop,” warned the boss of the social network in a tweet.
Since he bought the platform for 44 billion dollars at the end of October, the multi-billionaire has undertaken to upset its operation, with massive layoffs, various provocations and chaotic changes. Many advertisers have deserted the site and the application and the new paid subscription formula Twitter Blue (to be certified and benefit from privileges) seems very far from compensating for the loss of income, according to many analysts. But the boss of Tesla and SpaceX continues his momentum, encouraged by the feedback from his many fans. “We are working hard to make your thread as interesting as possible… How is it today compared to six months ago?” he asked in a poll on Sunday. About 46% of the 1.5 million voters answered “better”, and 38% “worse”.
Elon Musk has repeatedly mentioned this sibylline objective in recent months: “Maximize the time of use (spent on the platform) without regret”. When brands choose where to advertise, they consider a variety of metrics, including the number of daily (or at least monthly) active users, average time spent on the platform, and “engagement”. », i.e. the number of interactions with the content (comments, “likes”, etc.). “Time with no regrets,” “is not like total users or whatever. It’s just the total number of minutes of use without regret,” detailed the manager at a conference for advertising professionals in Miami (Florida) last month. Elon Musk did not indicate how to concretely measure this parameter, the name of which suggests that his assessment is subjective.
According to research firm Insider Intelligence, Twitter revenue will drop 28% this year because “advertisers don’t trust Musk.” In an interview with the BBC, Elon Musk assured the contrary that the company saw advertisers return and was “roughly at the break-even point”.
