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Turkish watchdog fines Elon Musk over Twitter takeover

By Pramod Kumar
Reuters

Turkey’s competition authority has fined billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk for taking over Twitter without its permission.

The competition authority said it fined Musk 0.1 percent of Twitter’s gross income in Turkey in 2022.

Musk’s takeover did not effectively violate competition, but was still fined for not taking the authority’s permission, the Daily Sabah newspaper reported.

The ruling is open to a legal challenge.

Twitter has fired top executives and enforced steep job cuts with little warning following Musk’s tumultuous takeover of the social media platform. About half of the workforce – around 3,700 employees – has been laid off.

A recent report from market analysis firm Gartner found high attrition rates and a spate of digitalisation efforts across business and government had created a “hyper-competitive” market for technical talent.

Mass job cuts and public resignations at Twitter have prompted worries the firm is shedding vital staff and fears the social media “town square” could face technical troubles.

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