About a week ago I wrote about how Twitter was refusing to pay its Google bill. If you missed it, here’s that article – Why Won’t Twitter Pay Their Google Cloud Bills?. To catch you up, since Elon Musk’s takeover last year he’s been carrying out a whole host of cost-saving measures, from huge lay-offs to just not paying his rent. Last week it came out, just as they appointed new CEO Linda Yaccarino, that they’d stopped paying their Google Cloud bills. It turns out they’d been bargaining for months ahead of the contract renewal date, now just days away. Thanks to Linda Yaccarino it seems, they’re back on track.
How Did We Get Here?
Since Musk’s chaotic purchase of Twitter last year, we’ve all been watching with disbelief as more and more bizarre news appears. The whole saga is characterised by him carrying a sink into their offices, referring to himself as ‘Chief Twit’ and tweeting, ‘Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!’. That all happened before he even bought the company.
Once it became clear, even to him, that Elon wasn’t the best fit for the job, in classic fashion, he asked the people. A Twitter poll – “Should I step down as head of Twitter?” – found 60% calling for him to quit. That sealed the deal.
No Google Cloud, No Security
Fast forward to today, Linda Yaccarino has been in the job for not much longer than a week. In that short time she’s got the company paying its Google Cloud bills again. Without Google Cloud’s support, the company risked data security, privacy and user safety. These things have all been slipping since Musk’s leadership anyway. It’s so bad that Australia is looking to fine them for online hate. They say a third of online hate complaints in the country come from Twitter. Just days before the new boss started, Ella Irwin, head of trust and safety resigned.
While Linda is sorting out this mess, what’s Elon doing? Oh yeah, he’s challenging Mark Zuckerberg to a duel! And fighting for so-called “free speech”, of course.
New Boss, New Plan – Google Cloud Bills Paid!
According to Bloomberg, Yaccarino has “helped get the relationship back on track”. It also appears that they may even be working on a new advertising deal. Aside from sorting out the company’s immediate problems, the new CEO has big plans for what she calls “Twitter 2.0”. She says they’re “on a mission to become the world’s most accurate real-time information source”.
If Yaccarino’s first week is anything to go by, it’s certainly looking up for Twitter. But that doesn’t take much. The company has lost two-thirds of its value since Musk bought it last year. Do you think the golden age of Twitter is over?
