In news that should come as absolutely zero surprise to anyone who has been paying attention over the last week, the Elon Musk era at Twitter has begun. And, Musk’s first order of business as “Chief Twit” at the company? Layoffs. Lots of them.
After closing on the deal for Twitter on Thursday last week, Musk has wasted no time in starting to cut the fat off the company. After immediately cutting schlep rock CEO Parag Agrawal and head censor Vijaya Gadde from the company, Musk is slated to continue making layoffs this week, according to the New York Times. After arriving at Twitter on Thursday, Musk also fired the company’s CFO.
According to the Times, managers are “being asked to draw up lists of employees to cut” on Musk’s orders. Twitter currently has about 7,500 employees and the scale of cuts in their entirety is not yet known, the report says.
Layoffs are expected to take place before November 1, the report says. This is the date that “employees were scheduled to receive stock grants as part of their compensation”.
Musk can avoid paying out the grants by laying off workers before the end of the month, the report says.
“I was told to expect somewhere around 50 percent of people will be laid off,” Ross Gerber, the chief executive of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management told the New York Times.
Recall, we pointed out on Thursday that media (for example, Bloomberg) was running rife, citing no sources at all, while claiming that advertisers are nervous of the nazi, child porn and hate-speech that will inevitably return to the social media platform now that the richest man in the world is in charge. The Wall Street Journal also warned that “Madison Avenue isn’t sold on the deal,” suggesting advertisers are anxious to be on the Musk-owned platform.
Elon Musk then tweeted a brief letter to advertisers, assuring them that “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/30/2022 – 15:30
