[Thread] After Bill Gross' 2015 hostile takeover attempt, Twitter locked down the API and limited third-party clients to 100K users until Jack Dorsey's return
but now he's facing federal heat Abram Brown / Forbes : Twitter's Poison Pill, Elon Musk's ‘Plan B’: 6 Possible Scenarios Of What Happens Next Firstpost Tech : Elon Musk's bid spotlights Twitter's unique role in public discourse - and what changes might be in store Livemint : How much it would cost to buy Twitter? What Elon Musk said 4 years ago Tweets: Chris Bakke / @chrisjbakke : Elon Musk is in for a bad time. I'm not sure he's prepared to take on a couple PhDs, a few MBAs, and a Baroness who use Twitter once a year (to reset their passwords) and collectively own 77 shares of the company. https://twitter.com/... Eric Newcomer / @ericnewcomer : Twitter board member Jack Dorsey snipes at Twitter's board https://twitter.com/... @rebeccaforwa : Elon Musk has enough money to end homeless and hunger, but instead he wants to buy Twitter. Max Boot / @maxboot : I realize you're just trolling, @tedcruz, which seems to be your fulltime job. But your claim that I want an “exclusive platform” at the Post or Twitter silly. There are a million different voices in both places, many expressing conservative views. I support that.... (1/2) https://twitter.com/... David Sacks / @davidsacks : Most public company boards are a joke once the founder is gone. They have little-to-no ownership in the company. They are a club. https://twitter.com/... Ted Cruz / @tedcruz : Orwell would be truly amazed at today's authoritarians. Free speech = “anything goes” To get “more democracy,” we need “MORE content moderation.” TRUST the overlords, the corporate media insists. Big Tech billionaires should decide what YOU get to say. What BS! https://twitter.com/... @tbskyen : This has such “I have realized the world needs a robust public transportation system, THEREFORE I AM BUILDING SINGLE FILE CAR TUBES UNDERGROUND” energy What a fucking idiot https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... @reuters : Buyout firm Thoma Bravo has contacted Twitter to express interest in putting together an acquisition offer that would rival Tesla CEO Elon Musk's $43 billion bid, people familiar with the matter said https://www.reuters.com/... https://twitter.com/... Tom Watson / @tomwatson : Original investor here. 👇🏻 https://twitter.com/... Matt Taibbi / @mtaibbi : A professional journalist who opposed free speech was not long ago considered a logical impossibility, but the Musk-Twitter news has brought a lot of them out of the woodwork: https://taibbi.substack.com/ ... Hans Mahncke / @hansmahncke : Mark Zuckerberg put up $500 million to interfere in a presidential election. Elon Musk is putting up 100 times as much to save democracy. It is a testament to the insanity of our times that Zuckerberg is heralded as a hero while Elon is vilified. Nathan Bomey / @nathanbomey : Let's see, that's the same JPMorgan that ... ::checks notes:: ... is suing Tesla over the fallout of Elon Musk's “funding secured” tweet. https://twitter.com/... Chris Cillizza / @chriscillizza : My favorite newsletter these days is by @matt_levine. His take on Elon and Twitter is characteristically smart and funny as hell. https://www.bloomberg.com/... Adam Creighton / @adam_creighton : Twitter Moves to Block Musk From Increasing Stake. A rolling case study in how boards' interests diverge from shareholders. There shouldn't be a ‘hostile’ takeover; either enough shareholders support a sale or they don't. https://www.wsj.com/... Paul Constant / @paulconstant : Perhaps the weirdest part of this whole story to me is that the Daily Planet avoided a hostile takeover by Lex Luthor using this exact same method in 1990s Superman comics. https://twitter.com/... Max Kennerly / @maxkennerly : Looking forward to him learning from his lawyers that the Revlon standard (506 A.2d 173, Del. 1986) precludes Twitter's Board from simply passing his offer along. They have a duty to maximize shareholder value, they can't just accept a 420-joke number with unclear financing. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Liz Simmie / @lizsimmie : There are a lot of good lines in this but this is my favourite ‘Musk is not even gesturing in the direction of minimal compliance with securities laws at this point’ https://twitter.com/... Grace Maral Burnett / @burnettgracem : “Ordinarily if a billionaire chief executive officer of a public company offers to buy a company, the odds that he is kidding are quite low. When it's Elon Musk, the historical odds are, like, 50/50.” @matt_levine https://www.bloomberg.com/... Kurt Andersen / @kbandersen : If you want to read just one article explaining and analyzing the Musk-Twitter business, this very smart and good-natured piece is probably it. https://twitter.com/... Alex Hern / @alexhern : If this story is true it recontextualises an awful lot of the last decade here https://twitter.com/... Rishi Iyengar / @iyengarish : Tbf “tell me why” pretty much encapsulates today's overall vibe https://twitter.com/... Jay Graber / @arcalinea : Fascinating thread from someone who was there in the early days https://twitter.com/... Andrew Hart / @andrewhartar : Two huge claims in this thread: 1. Twitter bought TweetDeck to protect itself against the threat of a billionaire acquiring all third-party Twitter apps 2. When Twitter infamously shut down their developer API without explanation, it was for the same reason. https://twitter.com/... @thevunderkind : this is...huge if true. wow. https://twitter.com/... Emmet Connolly / @thoughtwax : Fascinating backstory on how Twitter became the company it is today (and the platform it is not) https://twitter.com/... @beniaminmincu : Twitter has effectively become the defacto Town Square for the world. It is important for humanity that free speech be preserved, and twitter's potential be unlocked. Perhaps the optimal path would be for @elonmusk to buy twitter & immediately open source and decentralize it. https://twitter.com/... @mikeelgan : Phrase of the moment: “Elon Twitter” https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
With Elon Musk's $43 billion bid met by a poison pill and Thoma Bravo reportedly exploring a rival offer, Twitter is back in hostile-takeover territory — and @rabble's thread recalls what happened last time. After Bill Gross' 2015 attempt, Twitter locked down its developer API and capped third-party clients at 100K users, restrictions that held until Jack Dorsey's return.
The point of the history is that API access has functioned as a control lever before, not just a product decision. The squeeze on outside clients continued through the years that followed, with Twitter ending legacy API support used by apps like Tweetbot in 2018 and killing its native Mac app twice, leaving the developer ecosystem permanently thinner.
First-order effects
- Third-party client developers — the Tweetbot-style apps already surviving on restricted access — now face the risk that an ownership fight triggers another lockdown, since the 2015 precedent shows the API was closed specifically to defend against a hostile bidder.
- Twitter's board, armed with the poison pill and fielding Thoma Bravo's interest, controls whether API openness becomes a bargaining chip in whichever acquisition scenario plays out.
Second-order effects
- If a new owner repeats the 2015 move, the remaining third-party ecosystem collapses outright — these apps were never restored to pre-2015 access even after Dorsey returned, so there is little left to cut before developers exit entirely.
- Rival platforms and upstart social clients gain a recruiting window: every API restriction hands disillusioned Twitter developers and power users a reason to build or migrate elsewhere.
Third-order effects
- The structural lesson is that API access doubles as a takeover defense: any platform with concentrated founder or board control can throttle the developer ecosystem when ownership is contested, making third-party businesses structurally hostage to M&A politics they cannot see or price.
The trend: Platform APIs are increasingly treated as instruments of corporate control rather than open infrastructure, with ownership battles — 2015's Gross bid, today's Musk standoff — setting the terms for who gets to build on top.