Did Elon Musk alter the Twitter algorithm to profit?

Various media outlets around the world confirmed last weekend that the CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk would have ordered to adjust the algorithm of the social network within the framework of the Super Bowl, so that their Tweets would stand out.

Given this, billionaire Elon Musk had remained silent until now, since it was through his Twitter account this Friday that he denied having made any adjustments to the algorithm to improve the exposure of his Tweets.

“Several major media sources incorrectly reported that my Tweets increased their exposure above normal levels earlier this week,” he wrote.

“A review of my Tweet likes and views over the last 6 months, especially as a proportion of my followers, shows this to be false,” he added in his tweet.

Musk shows comparative to show that he is not benefiting personally

Did Elon Musk alter the Twitter algorithm to profit?

In the same way, in order to verify what was said, he shared a screenshot with the number of reactions that his publication had in April 2022, before he bought the company, and when he had 40,000 fewer followers.

In this post, he made jokes about his supposed intention to buy Coca-Cola “to put the cocaine back in it.” This one had 311 million reactions. According to Musk, his current posts don’t come close to that number.

However, he explained that the algorithm did present a bug that briefly caused replies to have the same prominence as the top Tweets. However, he said that this has already been fixed.

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The media assure the opposite: Musk would use the social network to enhance his messages

The Platformer specialized media, which cited experts and showed documents, said that during the Super Bowl game on Sunday, a Tweet by US President Joe Biden about his support for the Philadelphia Eagles team had more repercussions than a similar one from Musk, prompting an “urgency” request to fix it.

Musk’s Tweet, which he later deleted, had 9.1 million impressions (with 128 million followers), while Biden’s had 29 million impressions (with 37 million followers).

The same Sunday Musk flew to San Francisco and personally addressed some 80 engineers who worked all night to reconfigure the algorithm, so that it “artificially boosts” the exposure of the businessman’s tweets by a thousand so that they appear prioritized over others. in the “feed” where you see the publications.

A cousin of the mogul who is an employee of Twitter, James Musk, according to the news outlet, sent an internal message to the company in the early hours of Sunday asking anyone who could write code to “solve this problem.”

It was even the same Musk who seemed to confirm that order on Tuesday, with a message that said “Please stay connected while we make adjustments to the… algorithm” and a meme in which he made reference to the fact that he is “forcing” the social network to consume “Elon’s Tweets.”