Hannah Murphy in San Francisco

Days after Elon Musk had completed his $44bn buyout of Twitter, Esther Crawford shared a picture of herself sleeping on the floor of the social media company’s headquarters.

Wrapped in a sleeping bag, eye mask on, she added a caption to the viral post from November 2: “When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork”.

Crawford, Twitter’s director of product management, has according to current and former staff risen to become among the most influential leaders left from the old guard before Musk fired more than half the social media group’s workforce of 7,500, including most of its top executives.

The 39-year-old has done so, say people close to the company, by embodying the “hardcore” vision that Musk seeks to instil across his other companies such as Tesla and SpaceX where there is an expectation of working long hours “at high intensity”.

That has enabled her rapid ascent to lead its new moneymaking initiatives, such as the Twitter Blue subscription service and its nascent plans to allow payments through the site.

Crawford has also become one of the few women at the company to join Musk’s trusted lieutenants — a rise marked by her regular gushing posts online about the new Twitter, alongside self-improvement or management quotes.

To some insiders, Crawford has the charismatic energy needed to help transform Twitter’s flailing business, while being a sensible voice who has the ear of its impulsive owner. To other employees, she is reviled as a sycophant and opportunist.

When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork https://t.co/UBGKYPilbD

— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) November 2, 2022

“The sleeping bag incident really bothered people,” said one senior staffer who added Crawford has become one of few so-called Twitter 1.0 employees to successfully translate Musk’s demands to others under his ownership. “She has become a bit of an interpreter between Elon and the product team,” the person said.

Crawford declined to comment. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

When Musk first came to the San Francisco headquarters just before the deal closed, Crawford introduced herself in the Perch, Twitter’s on-site coffee shop, and secured a one-on-one meeting to discuss her ideas around payments and creators, according to multiple people familiar with the encounter.

For Musk, as one of the biggest creators on the platform with 126mn followers, her ideas resonated. Other people were irked; Crawford was reprimanded by a more senior leader for going above their head directly to Musk, according to people with knowledge of the company’s operations.

Under Musk, who has sought to diversify revenues away from the reliance on advertising, Crawford led the introduction of Twitter Blue, its $8 premium subscription service, which guarantees users a verified “blue tick”.

It eventually got off the ground late last year after several hiccups, with Crawford conceding: “There are no sacred cows in product at Twitter anymore. Elon is willing to try lots of things — many will fail, some will succeed.” 

In the longer term, she is charged with Musk’s ambitious plan to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions, together with ecommerce payments, on the platform and was appointed chief executive of its subsidiary Twitter Payments, according to multiple people familiar with the matter and first reported by Platformer.

Crawford first joined Twitter in late 2020, when the company bought Squad, the video chat start-up she founded, as the coronavirus pandemic took hold. On her LinkedIn profile, she said the app had “millions of users” and funding from seed-stage venture firms including First Round Capital.

Prior to that, she was herself an early YouTube video blogger and invited to be the lead social media strategist for Weight Watchers in the late 2000s after launching her own successful weight loss video blog.

A philosophy graduate with a masters degree in international relations, she also held product marketing roles at several Silicon Valley start-ups, and became an avid Twitter user, posting personal reflections on her life growing up in a Christian “cult” and the timing of her contractions as she gave birth.

I grew up in a cult. We had lots of rules (can’t cut hair, no makeup, no pants, no tv, no secular music, etc) and hierarchical leadership. We believed it was the “end times” so I lived in fear of doing anything wrong & being left behind. I exited on my own when I was 19. https://t.co/t6u7VlJE0T pic.twitter.com/0EzfqBICbA

— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) April 16, 2022

On joining Twitter as an employee, she would be responsible for finding ways for influencers to make money from the platform, and exploring opportunities around crypto, as head of its early-stage bets.

Initially, she directed research into what creators want from the platform, according to two colleagues, one of whom said the results were “sobering” because the company had failed to adequately cater to creators by this point. Crawford then worked on plans to address their demands, which included focusing on the audio feature Spaces, one of Twitter’s most successful updates, and on creator subscriptions.

Several current and former colleagues describe her as empathetic and diplomatic: her calendar is typically open for all to see, and she buys customised mugs for team members. Her charm, combined with a start-up mentality, has earned her Musk’s trust, according to three people who have worked with her, one of whom said that she was able to influence him by challenging him tactfully behind closed doors rather than publicly.

Crawford was responsible for smoothing tensions over at Apple, two of the people said, including after Musk publicly harangued chief executive Tim Cook over fees the tech group charges developers of its app store.

Her ideas have not always been welcomed. Crawford was among the proponents for Twitter’s controversial and now-halted plan to introduce a feature that would allow users to offer videos of adult content behind a paywall similar to that posted on subscriptions site OnlyFans, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Many former staffers, meanwhile, resent her embrace of the spotlight. She regularly posts a mix of Twitter business updates and inspirational corporate speak to her 50,000 followers.

One former senior staffer described her as “bootlicking”, adding: “She was a nobody who became somebody because she was willing to sell her soul for her 15 mins of fame. It’s gross.” It remained to be seen whether Twitter engineering teams would respect her given she was not a coder, said another current colleague.

Crawford appears unfazed. On her Twitter profile, the background photograph reads: “Be bold. Get back up. Believe in yourself.”

Elon Musk has launched a Twitter poll asking users if he should step down as head of the social media platform and pledged to honour the result, after a backlash to a new policy banning the promotion of accounts on rival platforms.

The billionaire entrepreneur, who bought Twitter for $44bn in October and is its chief executive, wrote to his 122mn followers on Sunday night: “Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.”

Musk later tweeted: “No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.”

The poll is open for 11 hours and with eight hours left, more than 8mn had voted, with 57 per cent in favour of him stepping down and 43 per cent against.

The move comes after Twitter announced earlier on Sunday a new policy banning users from sharing links to their accounts on rival platforms, including Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook and Instagram, as well as emerging Twitter rival Mastodon, Donald Trump’s Truth Social, plus Tribel, Nostr and Post.

“We know that many of our users may be active on other social media platforms; however, going forward, Twitter will no longer allow free promotion of specific social media platforms on Twitter,” the company said in a post.

Initial offences could result in temporary suspensions or a requirement to delete the offending tweet, but repeat offenders risk permanent suspension, it said.

“Twitter should be easy to use, but no more relentless free advertising of competitors. No traditional publisher allows this and neither will Twitter,” Musk said on the platform earlier on Sunday.

However, the policy sparked immediate criticism from Musk’s detractors and even some of his high-profile Silicon Valley allies for being too restrictive.

The SpaceX and Tesla chief executive then responded by saying that the policy would be “adjusted” so that suspensions would only apply “when that account’s primary purpose is promotion of competitors”.

In a separate tweet, he wrote: “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.”

The move is the latest shake-up since Musk took the helm, firing around half of its staff, cutting costs and overhauling its verification and moderation processes.

It comes two days after Musk also suspended several high-profile US journalists from Twitter, suggesting they fell foul of a recently created policy on sharing location information. The journalists, including Ryan Mac of the New York Times and Donie O’Sullivan of CNN, have since been reinstated. On Friday, EU and UK politicians expressed concern over the suspensions and press freedom.

Sunday’s policy change drew scrutiny from some of Musk’s supporters in Silicon Valley including former a16z partner Balaji Srinivasan, who wrote: “This is a bad policy and should be reversed. The right way to compete is to build a better product, not to restrict the use of your product.”

Meanwhile, Paul Graham, the founder of the Y Combinator start-up incubator who had previously praised Musk as he took over Twitter, wrote: “This is the last straw. I give up”, before adding that his website had a link to his Mastodon account. He was then suspended from the platform for the tweet.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s former chief executive who invested in one of the banned platforms Nostr, tweeted that the policy “doesn’t make sense”. 

Other critics argue that the move is likely to be unpopular among creators, most of whom have built up audiences across multiple platforms, and is at odds with Musk’s pledge to be a free speech proponent. Musk has brought back accounts that were permanently banned under the previous leadership, such as that of former US president Donald Trump.

Experts also warn that the policies could draw scrutiny from EU and US regulators. “These [policies] are clearly anti-competitive . . . as they seem to prevent communication across consumers comparing competitors,” said Pinar Yildirim, associate professor of economics and marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Before Sunday’s policy was announced, many Twitter users attempting to share links to their own Mastodon profiles were prevented from doing so, with the site flagging the posts as “potentially harmful”.

Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok is facing growing political backlash in the US as it was sued by the state of Indiana over data security and child safety concerns and banned by multiple Republican state governors from government devices.

A pair of lawsuits filed on Wednesday by Indiana’s Republican attorney-general against the popular short-form video platform, which is owned by Beijing’s ByteDance, alleged that the company had made false claims about its practices. The suits are seeking emergency injunctive relief and civil penalties from TikTok.

In one of the lawsuits, the state claims TikTok had “lured children” on to its platform by suggesting that it only hosted “infrequent/mild” sexual content, profanity, or drug references when the app was actually flooded with such content.

The second lawsuit argues TikTok misled Indiana consumers by suggesting that sensitive personal data it collects on users is protected from the Chinese government and Communist party, when it is not.

The lawsuits come as the social media app is facing mounting scrutiny from US lawmakers over its data practices and the potential threat to national security if private user information is accessible by the Chinese government due to the party-state system — a suggestion the company denies.

For months, TikTok has been working on a national security deal with the US government to address those concerns. This has involved partnering with US cloud software company Oracle to introduce better data protections for American users and more controls over when Chinese staffers have access to that data. However, the deal has yet to be agreed, despite pressure from lawmakers for a timely conclusion.

Separately this week, Texas became the latest state — alongside South Dakota, South Carolina and Maryland — to ban the use of TikTok on government devices, citing the growing “threat of the Chinese Communist party gaining access to critical US information and infrastructure”. 

The bans follow comments by the FBI director Christopher Wray last week, who alleged that the app’s parent company is “controlled by the Chinese government”. This “gives them the ability to control the recommendation algorithm” and “manipulate content”, as well as the ability to collect data for “traditional espionage operations” and conduct other “malicious cyber activity”, Wray said.

Indiana’s attorney-general Todd Rokita in a statement on Wednesday said: “The TikTok app is a malicious and menacing threat unleashed on unsuspecting Indiana consumers by a Chinese company that knows full well the harms it inflicts on users.”

“At the very least, the company owes consumers the truth about the age-appropriateness of its content and the insecurity of the data it collects on users. We hope these lawsuits force TikTok to come clean and change its ways.”

TikTok on Wednesday said “safety, privacy and security of our community is our top priority”, and that it had built “youth wellbeing” into its policies. It also expressed “disappointment” about the decisions by state agencies, adding that these were “largely fuelled by misinformation about our company”.

“We are also confident that we’re on a path in our negotiations with the US government to fully satisfy all reasonable US national security concerns, and we have already made significant strides toward implementing those solutions,” the company said.

Kanye West, the controversial rapper who has lost big business deals over anti-Semitic comments, is no longer going to buy Parler, the “free speech” social media platform.

Parler said its parent company Parlement Technologies had “mutually agreed” with West, who goes by Ye, to “terminate the intent of sale” for the platform.

“This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November,” it added. “Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community.”

The platform, a niche Twitter alternative, first announced the intent to sell itself to West in mid-October, shortly after the rapper appeared alongside rightwing commentator Candace Owens, the wife of Parler’s chief executive George Farmer, at a fashion show in Paris. Both wore T-shirts with the phrase “White Lives Matter”, a critique on the Black Lives Matter movement.

Shortly before the deal was announced, West was temporarily suspended from Twitter and Instagram, where he had tens of millions of followers, after making anti-Semitic comments. After the offensive posts were deleted he was allowed to return to the platforms.

One person close to the deal said that it had become clear some time ago that West was not in a strong enough financial position to complete the transaction. In October, West lost brand deals with Adidas and Gap, among others, following his controversial posts.

The deal to buy Parler was initially scheduled to close by the end of the year.

Parler was set up in 2018 as a “free speech” challenger to existing social media platforms, which some US conservatives and far-right supporters alleged were censoring right-leaning voices. Other alternative platforms include former US president Donald Trump’s Truth Social, Gettr, which was set up by former Trump adviser Jason Miller, and Rumble, a video platform backed by venture capitalists Peter Thiel and JD Vance.

However the platforms’ user numbers remain relatively small. According to data.ai, Parler had 983,000 monthly active users in the first half of the year. By contrast Twitter, which was in October bought by self-declared “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk, reported 238mn monetisable daily active users — a homegrown metric that counts the number of logged-in users to whom the platform shows advertising.

Parler was booted off the Apple and Google app stores after the attack on the US Capitol in January 2021 for hosting rule-breaking content, before later being allowed back following an overhaul of its moderation processes.

Earlier on Thursday, West stirred further outrage after he appeared on a show with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.

Elon Musk’s Twitter is offering brands generous incentives to advertise on the social media platform, in a bid to boost business after the billionaire’s approach to content moderation prompted many major marketers to curb spending.

In one email sent to advertising agencies, a copy of which was seen by the Financial Times, Twitter said that it was launching its “largest advertiser incentive ever” in December, offering additional impressions if brands spent a certain amount.

According to the email, Twitter will match the spending of those who pay at least $500,000 with a cap of $1mn per advertiser. Those spending $350,000 will receive “50 per cent value add” — meaning they receive additional impressions worth half of what they spend. A $200,000 investment grants advertisers a “25 per cent value add”, or extra impressions worth a quarter of what they spend.

Another email sent to a separate agency, also seen by the FT, contained that same offer for US brands, as well as slightly different offers for brands in the UK and the rest of the world, for example.

The attempt to lure advertisers comes as Musk, who closed his $44bn deal for the social media platform in October, has increasingly alienated brands and advertising agencies by loosening Twitter content moderation policies, undoing suspensions of rule-breaking accounts and laying off more than half of the workforce, including many of its ad sales team.

Brands including Mondelez, Carlsberg, United Airlines and General Motors have ceased advertising on the platform, while agencies including Omnicom Media and Interpublic Group have recommended their clients pause spending, dealing a blow to Twitter’s $5bn business.

Musk is on the hook for $1bn in annual interest payments after loading the company with $13bn of debt to help fund his acquisition of the business.

The Twitter incentives will last through December, according to the email, which invited brands and agencies to talk by phone to discuss scenarios “given the timeliness”. 

Platformer and Morning Brew first reported details of the incentives. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

Musk, a self-declared “free speech absolutist”, is allowing all speech on the platform as long as it is legal, although “negative/hate speech” will not be boosted in users’ feeds. The company is no longer enforcing its policy of banning coronavirus misinformation, though in a blog post on Wednesday it said none of its policies had changed and that its trust and safety team remained “strong and well-resourced”.

Tensions between Musk and advertisers have escalated as the billionaire entrepreneur has personally called chief executives who reduced spending in order to berate them. In the case of Apple, one of Twitter’s largest advertisers, Musk on Monday publicly called out the chief executive Tim Cook for shrinking spending on the platform.

After several waves of job cuts and departures, Twitter’s ads business team has shrunk so much that many agencies and brands no longer have any point of contact at the company, according to multiple people familiar with the situation. Others are complaining that Twitter’s ads systems have also become buggy during Musk’s overhaul.

While the December deals Twitter is offering are unusually generous, some brands remain unconvinced, according to industry insiders. One agency executive said it would make “no impact to advertisers’ decisions”.

“They sound like the guy playing the violin on the Titanic,” another senior media buyer said. “I don’t think any client is willing to take the risk.”