The Washington Post reported that Elon Musk planned to get rid of nearly 75% of Twitter’s 7,500 workers—leaving the company down to a staff of just over 2,000. This could happen once his USD 44 billion deal for the social network platform goes through.
There has been a lot of back and forth with Elon Musk’s deal with Twitter. In April of this year, it was announced that Elon Musk had bought Twitter for USD 44 billion (RM191 billion) after an “aggressive acquisition bid“. However, a month later, Musk said that he put the deal on hold after he accused Twitter of underestimating the number of spam and fake accounts.
There were then several lawsuits between the two parties. And earlier this month, Musk reversed course and said he will proceed with the Twitter deal on the original terms, even though he claimed that he and other investors were “overpaying” for the social media company.
“Although, obviously, myself and the other investors are obviously overpaying for Twitter right now, the long-term potential for Twitter in my view is an order of magnitude greater than its current value,” Musk said.
The billionaire has reportedly told associates he thinks that dramatically slimming down the company is “the first step to executing a turnaround strategy that would then involve bringing in more effective workers and profitable innovations”. He plans on expanding on new services that he claimed could bring in more revenue—like a subscription business where people pay to subscribe to exclusive content from powerful figures and influencers.
However, even if Musk’s Twitter deal doesn’t pan out, big cuts are expected anyway. The Washington Post reportes that the documents they obtained showed Twitter’s current management planned to pare the company’s payroll by about USD 800 million by the end of next year. That means that they would need to get rid of nearly a quarter of the workforce. Musk’s plan just seems a lot more severe.
This is probably why Twitter officials were eager to sell the platform to Musk. He’s a golden ticket for a struggling company—potentially helping its leadership avoid painful announcements like letting their workforce go.
Musk getting rid of more employees than needed isn’t just the only thing that’s worrying. Many are concerned that Musk plans to remove Twitter’s policies restricting hate speech and misinformation. He has also said he would reinstate Donald Trump on Twitter after the social network permanently banned him.
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