Twitter Investor Relations Material

Twitter (Now X) was one of the world's most influential social media sites for over a decade. Headquartered in San Francisco and traded on the NYSE until the spring of 2023 when Elon Musk bought the platform for $44 billion. Twitter's legacy (and the platform itself) still lives on, even if there have been several changes after the purchase and subsequent de-listing of the platform from public markets.

Twitter, founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Noah Glass, and Evan Williams, revolutionized social media with its microblogging platform. Its origin traces back to a brainstorming session by the board members of the podcasting company Odeo, where Dorsey introduced the idea of an SMS-based communication platform.

Twitter's growth was meteoric, mainly after it showcased at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in 2007. Over time, it became not just a platform for personal updates but also a vital tool for news, brand marketing, and entertainment.

When Twitter launched in 2006, its uniqueness stemmed from its simplicity. Unlike other social media platforms that offered varied content-sharing methods, Twitter mandated a concise, 140-character limit for its messages. Unlike the friend model of other sites such as Meta’s Facebook, the platform's follower model enabled a more asymmetrical relationship, allowing public figures, journalists, and influencers to have vast audiences without needing mutual connections. Twitter stood out by providing a real-time, global microblogging platform that democratized information flow and reshaped how the world communicated.

Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla and SpaceX) had long been a prolific user of the platform but began speaking about purchasing the company in early 2022. After attempting to buy enough shares to get a seat on the board of directors but failing to do so, Musk eventually purchased the entire company. He then subsequently took the company public and renamed it to X after a couple of months at the helm. While the platform still operates in more or less the same way as it always has, Elon Musk has brought about several large changes. Most notably a relaxation of the moderation policy of the platform, as well as several pushes for increased monetization.