One year prior, Elon Musk had acquired Twitter and upon entering the headquarters, he held aloft a sink while saying, "Let this sink in," and then proceeded to let go of a considerable number of employees.
It marked the initial taste of a 12-month tornado of inconsistent transformation - especially the alteration of the business' moniker to X.
X has shown remarkable staying power despite competition both established and recently emerged.
Yet, with advertisers cautious and user numbers unreliable, what lies ahead for X?
Accurately determining the usage of X is challenging since the company does not share these numbers. However, analytics firms report that utilization of X has decreased compared to before.
David Carr, from the web analytics firm SimilarWeb, stated that practically all figures have decreased compared to the previous year.
Ross Gerber, an investor in Twitter and vocal adversary of the guidance Mr Musk has provided, proclaimed the platform is "declining".
He maintained that there were two realms – reality and fantasy – and in the former, Twitter was in dire straits and needed rescuing.
It is certain that a vast number of renowned individuals have departed from the platform in the course of the last year, prominent among them being Elton John and Gigi Hadid.
Madeleine Dunne, a former journalist now at the digital marketing agency Story Shop, informed that she has more or less abandoned the platform after the introduction of the pay-for blue tick verification policy by Mr Musk, rendering it "hard to know whom to trust."
Logging into X, she said, is like getting onto a sinking ship. The 'For You' page is a disaster, with verified users on X Premium swamping out everyone else, leaving very little of the content related to her interests.
A great difficulty for X, and similarly Twitter, is how to become profitable. To accomplish this objective, Mr Musk has had to dramatically decrease expenditures by dismissing personnel, a process which has been tough for employees.
Melissa Ingle, a former moderator, stated that her "stomach dropped" when her company's logins suddenly ceased functioning.
She informed the BBC that she had gone through a horrible period.
For many years, revenue at Twitter had come from advertising solely. However, Musk made an attempt to add a subscription-based income to that, allowing those who paid to receive a blue tick and extra features. He declared the introduction of two tiers of additional subscriptions.
In spite of those new developments, X continues to be heavily dependent on ad income, which is on a downward trend - something which must be concerning to Musk.
Third-party data suggests that since Mr Musk's acquisition of the platform, the monthly US ad revenue has dropped a minimum of 55% year-on-year. Even prior to Mr Musk's input, the company had difficulty making a profit, having posted gains just twice since its inception in 2006.
He has acknowledged that it is an essential problem.
He pointed out that positive cash flow needs to be achieved before they can enjoy any other luxuries.
The recruitment of 'superwoman' Linda Yaccarino, previously the head of advertising at NBCUniversal, to the role of X CEO was considered a beneficial achievement for the company, and it increased the divide between Mr Musk and the platform.
Dr Ben Marder, a senior lecturer in Marketing at University of Edinburgh Business School, stated that he did not feel Ms Yaccarino had been provided with the opportunity to introduce new ideas, and was instead pressured by Elon to aim for revenue boosts which would ultimately have a negative outcome, such as the subscription model.
Mr. Musk urges employees to aspire to grand ideas. He has a much larger vision for X than just being a social media firm. He desires X to be an all-encompassing application.
When the BBC questioned him earlier this year as to what this implies, he responded with: "You'll just have to wait and see".
This video is unable to be played.
View: An abridged version of Elon Musk's surprising interview with BBC in just 90 seconds!
Ms Yaccarino provided the most descriptive outline of the potential extension of X in July.
She stated that X will become the future of boundless interactivity, which will revolve around sound, video, communication, banking and payments, and will make a global arena for opportunities, items, and services.
Utilizing AI, X will bring us together in ways that are still in the early stages of contemplatio
Mr Musk has already broadened Twitter's capabilities. Just a few weeks ago he broadcast himself playing video games. He hopes that X could challenge platforms such as Twitch.
On Thursday, he rolled out a new audio and video calling capability that operates without needing a phone number. When users opened the app, they were alerted with the following message: "Audio and video calls are available now!"
Mr Musk's ideas and plans relating to X banking are also noteworthy.
The data from the New York Times' acquisition of the pitch deck Mr Musk presented to investors this past year revealed that X was slated to generate $15 million in payments revenue by 2023, expected to increase to approximately $1.3 billion by 2028.
Mr Gerber stated that his investment decision was largely influenced by his admiration of Elon Musk.
He commented that, in many ways, their argument was not clear about what they were offering but that people should have faith in Elon as he was sure to create something remarkable.
Yet one year on, he remains perplexed by Elon Musk's ideas for the business. "Will he be willing to compromise on his rigid attitude towards certain expressions and thus attract back sponsors? That's what it all boils down to," he questioned.
It appears that X will continually confront the issue of weeding out inappropriate content.
The Centre for Countering Digital Hate found that, a week after being reported to moderators, X still hosted nearly 86% of a set of 300 hateful posts. The group is in the midst of a legal conflict with the platform in regards to its allegations.
Posts contained messages which were suggestive of antisemitism, racism, and white supremacy.
Imran Ahmed, the originator of the group, asserted: "Elon Musk's one-year tenure at X is a perfect example of how misguided it is to anticipate digital networks to have self-governance."
X confronts a lot of difficulties, though they appear to have done little to dampen Mr Musk's aspirations. His pinned post on the platform where he invested a great deal of money states: "X as a global shared consciousness."
Take time to absorb that.
Comments