Daily Crunch: Twitter CEO admits he bought the platform for $44 billion because “I kind of had to”

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TechCrunch’s top 3

• Bird, bird, bird is the word: Lots of news on Twitter today, so sit back and take it all. First, Elon Musk confirms what we all knew: he bought Twitter because he thought he would have to. Darrell more on that. Also, Ivan writes that the legacy check mark you have is due to expire on 4/20…we think. We’ve heard this before, but now some colleagues are seeing them go. And in case you missed it, Amanda reports that NPR is leaving Twitter and that Twitter, Inc., has a new name.
• Who is here?: Truecaller brings live caller ID on iPhone to its premium subscribers, but there is a bit of work to be done on the user’s part. Jagmeet see you.
• Give me a beat: Music makes everything better, and a new integration with Spotify gives Strava users a soundtrack for their activities, reports Aisha.

Startups and VCs

The early days of the pandemic proved to be a boon for home fitness enthusiasts. Gyms closed indefinitely, and even when they began to reopen, many members seriously wondered if the model would continue to suit their lives in the future. One of the companies that saw early gains and then a lot of turbulence was Tonal. brian reports that the company just raised $130 million in new funding and named a new CEO.

“Upon further review, it has come to our attention that the manner in which the process was described (in the TechCrunch article) could potentially be considered bank fraud. As a result, our process partner has terminated our relationship,” a Smoakland spokesperson said in an email to haje. Whoops.

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Big Tech inc.

Are we the only ones assuming you all have at least two LinkedIn notifications to connect from someone who hasn’t figured out how to add a photo to their profile? Or they might be protecting their identity for other reasons, of course. Either way, you probably want to keep it strictly commercial on LinkedIn. GOOD, Aisha writes that LinkedIn has rolled out a free feature to verify your identity and employment so you can tell if it’s the real person. Now, whether or not you want to provide a government ID and phone number to a social media site is your decision.

In the meantime, Kyle tells you all about the new open source model from Databricks which has a super cute name, but also some flaws.

And we have five more for you: