According to a new report published by The Washington Post on Thursday, Tesla owner and billionaire Elon Musk told prospective investors that he wishes to cut nearly 75 per cent of the Twitter staff as a part of his deal to take over the company.
The report which cited interviews and documents also said that no matter who owns the company, job cuts are expected. The news of Musk’s changed plan to acquire the social media business comes at a crucial moment for Twitter. It had drastically “slowed hiring” since July, as the tech industry experienced a broader economic crisis and many other companies froze recruitment of new employees. Not only the acquisition drama of the billionaire already provoked many employees to resign from their jobs but also embroiled Twitter into a legal battle with Musk, who walked away from his $44 billion bid to take over the company. Now earlier this month, Musk decided to reverse his decision.
Although the Human Resources executives of Twitter assured the employees that it had no plans for mass slash-offs, the documents and reports showed otherwise, i.e; the current management plans to snip of the staff by 25% and also cut down expenditure on infrastructure as it will decrease its payroll by $800 million. Even in the Washington Post report, it is highly anticipated that Twitter will minimise funding to data centres and infrastructure sites. However, Musk’s plans to lay off 75% of the workforce, will reduce it to a ‘skeleton’ of merely 2000 workers.
In a memo, Twitter General Counsel Sean Edgett said, “We do not have any confirmation of the buyer’s plans following close and recommend not following rumours or leaked documents but rather wait for facts from us and the buyer directly.”
The lay offs— whether big or small, will definitely effect its daily operations, causing hindrance in its ability to moderate objectionable content and countering security issues. A stinging report published in September alleged Twitter to be egregiously lacking in both.
According to Carl Tobias, Williams chair in law at the University of Richmond, “Twitter appears to be rudderless, and on a bit of a downward spiral, and it has only been exacerbated by Musk. It looks like it is going to be rough sailing for some time.”
Musk also said, that after taking over Twitter, he would moderate its content limits and censorship, and present a subscription based profit model to the company.
The current hostility between the Tesla owner and Twitter initiated when the former backed from the contract to buy the company in May 2022 after accusing Twitter of giving incorrect count of bot and spam accounts on the platform. Twitter retaliated by alleging him of making up an excuse to withdraw from the deal.
The mounting tension between the two parties who were about to approach litigation made a substantial U-turn when Musk proposed to go back to the contract on previous terms. He is now trying to secure funds from prospective investors before next Friday, which is supposedly the deadline to finalise the acquisition deal.