Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion, he has taken aggressive action, drawing the scrutiny of regulatory bodies, to make it a lean, profitable company, warning that it may not otherwise survive.
The tech titan recently sold Tesla stock to “save” Twitter, he told the staff who hadn’t yet resigned or been laid off at a meeting Thursday, the New York Times first reported. He has offloaded nearly $4 billion in Tesla holdings recently, according to regulatory filings.
Last week, Musk cleaned house at the headquarters, letting go of nearly half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees and telling the remaining employees to be more efficient and “hard core.”
After the mass dismissals, Twitter’s work force still has a lot of deadweight, Musk said. He intends to eliminate remote work and focus every role on generating revenue and combatting spam. Musk has reportedly demanded that staff work from the office for a minimum of 40 hours a week to improve productivity and company cohesion.
“The economic picture ahead is dire,” he prophesied, urging the importance of transitioning Twitter to a subscription revenue model over advertising. “The absolute top priority is finding and suspending any verified bots/trolls/spam,” he wrote in an email.
Musk has been eager to revive and rebrand the subscription service, Twitter Blue.
This week he raised the price to eight dollars a month. In exchange, users receive the coveted verification status, typically reserved for public figures such as celebrities, journalists, and other figures.
“Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn,” he wrote in an email to staff, according to the Times.
Over 90 percent of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertisers, some of which have distanced themselves in recent days over Musk’s proposed standards for looser content moderation. He vowed to give advertisers who pull out a “thermonuclear name & shame.” Twitter, Musk claims, had been well in the red before his arrival.
Musk is currently under suspicion of violating Twitter’s consent decree with the FTC. After the departure of three executives responsible for privacy, information security, and compliance this week, Musk reportedly told software engineers to “self-certify” legal compliance of products and features they are rolling out, the Times noted.
The investor bought Twitter after onerous legal battles and negotiations, ending in his not-so-friendly takeover. The company’s management at one point took Musk to court over his efforts to renege on the acquisition agreement over the platform’s alleged lack of transparency around the number of bots. Musk was initially motivated to acquire Twitter when he noticed disproportionate censorship of certain right-of-center voices.
Since he took control, some employees have resigned to precipitate probable termination, finding the work environment hostile.
“Don’t resign, be fired, one employee wrote in the company Slack channel in a message obtained by the Times.
“Resignation is cheap and easy for the employer,” the employee wrote. “If you have a better plan lined up, go for it. If you are intimidated into considering resignation, don’t,” the employee wrote.