A year after Musk's Twitter takeover, X remains mired in turmoil

 A year ago Elon Musk purchased X, formerly known as Twitter, taking the platform on a journey that has resulted in lost money, advertisers and trust.

Musk closed the $44 billion deal on Oct. 27, 2022, facing a lawsuit that held him to terms of purchase he was keen to escape.

In the days after his purchase, Musk quickly fired executives who had been running Twitter and took the publicly traded company private.

He also laid off most of the San Francisco-based company's workers, cutting ranks to fewer than 1,500 from 8,000.

Twitter employees were asked to commit unconditionally to their jobs and forego any notion of telecommuting.

In July, Musk did away with Twitter's globally recognized bird logo and changed the platform's name to X.

In the months following his takeover, Musk gutted content moderation, restored accounts of previously banned extremists, and allowed users to purchase account verification, helping them profit from viral - but often inaccurate - posts.

Musk defended such changes in the name of free speech.

Steps taken by Musk at X "have sparked increased sharing of misinformation and hate speech," PolitiFact in a report, echoing an array of groups tracking toxic content on social media.

This month the European Commission announced an investigation into X for alleged dissemination of bogus information and terrorist content regarding the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Over the past year, the platform's advertising business partially collapsed as marketers soured on X.

Insider Intelligence forecasts that X will finish 2023 with $2.98 billion in ad revenue, compared to $4.14 billion in 2022.

Musk early this year said the company's value had more than halved to $20...