Elon Musk: Billionaire says he had had ‘no choice’ over firings as Twitter losing $4m per day

‘This action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward,’ a memo to staff reportedly says

Elon Musk to layoff more than 3,000 Twitter employees

Elon Musk said he had “no choice” but to fire around 3,700 Twitter employees worldwide as the company is losing $4m per day.

The billionaire took to Twitter to break his silence on the firings on Friday afternoon.

“Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required,” he tweeted.

Earlier in the day, thousands of employees at the company ost their jobs, with staff notified about the layoffs in an email on Thursday.

“Team, In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” the internal memo to the employees noted.

“We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”

Mr Musk has already made several changes to the company, starting with the firing of three of its top executives, including chief executive Parag Agrawal.

He had earlier told prospective investors that he intended to reduce the company’s staff from around 7,500 down to just over 2,000.

Bloomberg reported on Thursday that he planned to cut about 3,700 jobs at Twitter – about half the company’s workforce.

Key Points

• Twitter sued for mass layoffs without enough notice
• Twitter employees are calling Friday 'The Snap' and posting Thanos memes
• Employees received emails saying layoffs are starting today
• Musk breaks silence on Twitter firings
• Twitter’s Head of Safety & Integrity insists ‘core moderation capabilities remain in place'

[4 November 2022 23:29 · Graeme Massie]

Musk breaks silence on Twitter firings

The platform’s billionaire new owner took to Twitter on Friday to explain why half of the company’s 7,500 staff had been let go.

“Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required,” he tweeted.

[4 November 2022 23:45 · Graeme Massie]

Musk says hate speech down ‘at times’ on Twitter as he blames media

Elon Musk has claimed that hate speech is actually down ‘at times’ on Twitter since he took over the social media platform.

Musk took to Twitter on Friday to try and reassure users and advertisers, many of whom have paused their ad spending since the billionaire’s $44bn purchase.

“Again, to be crystal clear, Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged. In fact, we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline *below* our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press,” he tweeted.

[5 November 2022 00:03 · Graeme Massie]

Will governments remain verified?

The documents account for “government accounts to keep their Verified badge without paying for Blue”, according to internal documents.

Twitter Blue will also come with some other features: “You will also get: priority in replies, mentions & search, which is essential to defeat spam/scam; Ability to post long video & audio – half as many ads”, Mr Musk tweeted.

[5 November 2022 01:03 · Graeme Massie]

ICYMI: Twitter may have lost over one million accounts since Elon Musk takeover

Twitter may have lost more than a million accounts since Tesla chief Elon Musk closed his deal to buy the microblogging platform for $44bn and took over the company, a new analysis suggests.

Since the Tesla titan took over Twitter on 27 October, over 850,000 accounts were deactivated and nearly 500,000 likely suspended, according to Bot Sentinel, a firm that tracks inauthentic behavior on Twitter, MIT Technology Review first reported.

“Based on our internal data, we estimate 877,000 Twitter accounts were deactivated, and a further 497,000 were suspended between October 27 and November 1. That’s more than double the usual number,” Bot Sentinel’s founder Christopher Bouzy tweeted, sharing a list of some of the accounts that were suspended or deactivated.

The company analysed over 3.1 million accounts and their daily activity and found the proportion of them that were deactivated or suspended after Mr Musk’s takeover.

This number was then extended to Twitter’s overall user base of about 237 million “monetizable daily active users” to arrive at the figure of about 1 million users.

[5 November 2022 02:05 · Graeme Massie]

ICYMI: Elon Musk has publicly aired his grievances against so-called “activists” drawing advertisers away, claiming they were cutting into its bottom line.

“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists. Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America,” tweeted Mr Musk.

[5 November 2022 03:08 · Graeme Massie]

Elon Musk demands Twitter make $1bn in cuts

ICYMI: Elon Musk has directed Twitter teams to find up to $1 billion in annual infrastructure cost savings, Reuters reports.

The company is currently losing about $3 million a day “with all spending and revenue considered.”

It may cut server space, which is what ensures Twitter can maintain high traffic.

“(Musk) is willing to introduce that risk to meet these goals,” the person said.

The second source allegedly described the proposed cuts as “delusional,” and that when user traffic kicks up the service can fail “in spectacular ways.”

[5 November 2022 04:02 · Graeme Massie]

Twitter could pay for DMs to celebrities

ICYMI: Elon Musk’s Twitter could include paying to send messages to celebrities, the New York Times reports.

The people, called “Very Important Tweeters”, would receive messages after users paid them a nominal fee - with Twitter taking a cut.

Early prototypes depict a Twitter user asking the musician Post Malone about his favorite records.

These messages could appear in a special area of the direct message inbox, with celebrities opting-in.

However, there is no guarantee this product will launch.

[5 November 2022 05:04 · Graeme Massie]

Twitter will become “a sounding board for Elon and his pals”

ICYMI: One former Twitter employee has made a harsh statement about Elon Musk’s takeover.

“Elon's takeover of Twitter is not for freedom of speech. It's quite literally an attempt to create a sounding board for Elon and his pals whose conservative views and rhetoric hasn't be elsewhere.

“Look at his response to AOC, his approach to communicating with employees, the sentiments he expresses on his page, his approach to "improving the app". Twitter is about to lose all of its content moderation, infrastructure support, and half its workforce.

“Idc if you keep or delete the app, just understand as a user, as a consumer, where your data, your money, and your energy is going when you participate in Elon's ‘global town square’”

[5 November 2022 06:05 · Graeme Massie]

Twitter’s upcoming culture war?

ICYMI: An anonymous Twitter employee gave Business Insider an insight into what is happening in the company.

“It’s almost like I am in mourning. Up until last week, I was under the impression that most people inside the company felt the same way that I did. For the most part, I still am. But on Blind, it’s been nuts to me to see this small faction of newly-minted Elon acolytes suddenly rise up and try to make their voices heard. The amount of ass-kissing and the amount of bizarre Reddit, 4-chan-style stuff like ‘oh Elon, I’ll be your right hand’ on Blind, during those first days after the transaction closed — it was terrifying. I thought, ‘I don’t want to work with these clowns.’ Now, those pro-Elon voices have virtually disappeared from Blind. I have no idea what’s going on. Are the Elon loyalists still out there? I don’t think this group is in the majority, at least not yet. But I’m concerned that the next generation of people building Twitter won’t believe in the core of our mission. They’ll believe in Elon Musk.

“No one is telling us what Elon is actually like, but people seem obsessed with his celebrity. A lot of people seem tickled by the fact that this very famous person is in their presence.”