Billionaire Elon Musk is already floating main adjustments for Twitter — and faces main hurdles as he begins his first week as proprietor of the social-media platform.

Twitter’s new proprietor fired the corporate’s board of administrators and made himself the board’s sole member, in line with an organization submitting Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

He’s additionally testing the waters on asking customers to pay for verification. A enterprise capitalist working with Musk tweeted a ballot asking how a lot customers could be prepared to pay for the blue examine mark that Twitter has traditionally used to confirm higher-profile accounts so different customers know it is actually them.

Musk, whose account is verified, replied, “Interesting.”

Critics have derided the mark, typically granted to celebrities, politicians, enterprise leaders and journalists, as an elite standing image.

But Twitter additionally makes use of the blue examine mark to confirm activists and individuals who out of the blue discover themselves within the information, in addition to little-known journalists at small publications across the globe, as an additional device to curb misinformation coming from accounts which are impersonating folks.

“The whole verification process is being revamped right now,” Musk tweeted Sunday in response to a consumer who requested for assist getting verified.

On Friday, in the meantime, billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal mentioned he and his Kingdom Holding Company rolled over a mixed $1.89 billion (practically Rs. 15,600 crore) in current Twitter shares, making them the corporate’s largest shareholder after Musk. The information raised issues amongst some lawmakers, together with Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut.

Murphy tweeted that he’s requesting the Committee on Foreign Investment — which evaluations acquisitions of US companies by international patrons — to analyze the nationwide safety implications of the dominion’s funding in Twitter.

“We should be concerned that the Saudis, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting US politics, are now the second-largest owner of a major social media platform,” Murphy tweeted. “There is a clear national security issue at stake and CFIUS should do a review.”

Having taken possession of the social media service, Musk has invited a gaggle of tech-world associates and traders to assist information the San Francisco-based firm’s transformation, which is prone to embody a shakeup of its workers. Musk final week fired CEO Parag Agrawal and different high executives. There’s been uncertainty about if and when he may start larger-scale layoffs.

Those who’ve revealed they’re serving to Musk embody Sriram Krishnan, a associate at enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz, which pledged again within the spring to chip in to Musk’s plan to purchase the corporate and take it personal.

Krishnan, who can be a former Twitter product government, mentioned in a tweet that it’s “a hugely important company and can have great impact on the world and Elon is the person to make it happen.”

Jason Calacanis, the enterprise capitalist who tweeted the ballot about whether or not customers would pay for verification, mentioned over the weekend he’s “hanging out at Twitter a bit and simply trying to be as helpful as possible during the transition.”

Calacanis mentioned the workforce already “has a very comprehensive plan to reduce the number of (and visibility of) bots, spammers, & bad actors on the platform.” Twitter is at the moment free for many customers as a result of it is dependent upon promoting for its income.

Musk agreed to purchase Twitter n April however it wasn’t till Thursday night that he lastly closed the deal, after his makes an attempt to again out of it led to a protracted authorized battle with the corporate. Musk’s legal professionals at the moment are asking the Delaware Chancery Court to throw out the case, in line with a courtroom submitting made public Monday. The two sides had been alleged to go to trial in November in the event that they did not shut the deal by the top of final week.

Musk has made a variety of pronouncements since early this yr about tips on how to repair Twitter, and it stays unclear which proposals he’ll prioritize.

He has promised to chop again a few of Twitter’s content material restrictions to advertise free speech, however mentioned Friday that no main selections on content material or reinstating of banned accounts will probably be made till a “content moderation council” with various viewpoints is put in place. He later certified that comment, tweeting “anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail.”

The head of a cryptocurrency change that invested $500 million (practically Rs. 4,100 crore) in Musk’s Twitter takeover mentioned he had a variety of causes for supporting the deal, together with the likelihood Musk would transition Twitter into an organization supporting cryptocurrency and the idea often known as Web3, which many cryptocurrency lovers envision as the following era of the web.

“We want to make sure that crypto has a seat at the table when it comes to free speech,” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao informed CNBC on Monday. “And there are more tactical things, like we want to help bring Twitter into Web3 when they’re ready.”

He mentioned cryptocurrency may very well be helpful for fixing a few of Musk’s speedy challenges, such because the plan to cost a premium membership price for extra customers.

“That can be done very easily, globally, by using cryptocurrency as a means of payment,” he mentioned.