In addition to Twitter, the company previously operated the Vine short video app and Periscope livestreaming service.

[10] On April 25, 2022, Twitter agreed to a $44 billion buyout by Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, one of the biggest deals to turn a company private.

[13] Twitter's shares fell,[14] leading company officials to sue Musk in Delaware's Court of Chancery on July 12.

Following Musk's takeover, Twitter was criticized for an increase in hate speech,[17] as well as for perceived systemic prioritization of right-wing content.

Jack Dorsey, then an undergraduate student at New York University, introduced the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a small group.

[34][41] However, no deal was made, with reports in October stating that all the potential buyers dropped out partly due to concerns over abuse and harassment on the service.

[63][64] In response, Twitter board chair Bret Taylor pledged to pursue legal action against Musk at the Delaware Court of Chancery with the goal of completing the acquisition.

[84] On November 4, Twitter laid off about half of its 7,500 employees,[85] leaving several internal departments, including communication and core engineering teams, understaffed.

[87] Several current and former Twitter employees sued the company for violations of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 due to failures to provide a 60-day notice prior to mass firings.

[91][92][93] The Verge reported that multiple critical engineering teams "completely or near-total[ly] resigned", increasing internal fears of a collapse of Twitter.

[95] Advertising agencies, including IPG and Omnicom Media Group, advised clients to pause ad spending on Twitter temporarily until the platform can sufficiently assure brand safety concerns.

[98] According to a November 2022 report from Media Matters for America, Twitter had lost half of its top 100 advertisers, which spent $750 million on ads in 2022.

[100] By December 2022, Musk's family office privately sought to sell new shares valued at his original acquisition price of $54.20, amid turmoil among users and advertisers, and debt payments approaching.

Musk's money manager wrote to investors that in recent weeks the family office had received "numerous inbound requests to invest in Twitter.

Musk denied the report, saying, "corpo media shills clearly have their marching orders to write hit pieces on me these days.

[113][114] Twitter released Vine as a standalone app that allows users to create and share six-second looping video clips on January 24, 2013.

[122] Twitter acquired Crashlytics, a crash reporting tool for developers, on January 28, 2013, for over US$100 million, its largest acquisition at the time.

[135] On June 4, 2014, Twitter announced that it would acquire Namo Media, a technology firm specializing in "native advertising" for mobile devices.

[136] On June 19, 2014, Twitter announced that it had reached an undisclosed deal to buy SnappyTV, a service that helps edit and share video from television broadcasts.

[137][138] The company was helping broadcasters and rights holders to share video content both organically across social and via Twitter's Amplify program.

CardSpring enabled retailers to offer online shoppers coupons that they could automatically sync to their credit cards in order to receive discounts when they shopped in physical stores.

[142] On February 11, 2015, Twitter announced that it had acquired Niche, an advertising network for social media stars, founded by Rob Fishman and Darren Lachtman.

[163] On October 14, 2015, former Google chief business officer Omid Kordestani became executive chairman, replacing Dorsey who remains CEO.

[168][169] In February 2020, it was reported that Elliott Management Corporation had acquired a stake in Twitter, with activist shareholder and Republican Party supporter Paul Singer expected to seek the removal of Dorsey as CEO.

[172][173] On October 27, 2022, Elon Musk closed a deal to purchase the company and fired Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Edgett.

[186] In August 2010 Twitter announced a "significant" investment led by Digital Sky Technologies that, at US$800 million, was reported to be the largest venture round in history.

[188] On September 12, 2013, Twitter announced that it had filed papers with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ahead of a planned stock market listing.

[191] The initial public offering (IPO) filing states that "200,000,000+ monthly active users" access Twitter and "500,000,000+ tweets per day" are posted.

[199] On February 5, 2014, Twitter published its first results as a public company, showing a net loss of $511 million in the fourth quarter of 2013.

[201] Later The New York Times reported that Russian-American billionaire Yuri Milner had strong Kremlin backing for his investments in Facebook and Twitter.