SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elon Musk plans to put off most of Twitter’s workforce if and when he becomes owner of the social media company, in response to a report Thursday by The Washington Post.
Musk has told prospective investors in his Twitter purchase that he plans to chop nearly 75% of Twitter’s worker base of seven,500 employees, leaving the corporate with a skeleton crew, in response to the report. The newspaper cited documents and unnamed sources aware of the deliberations.
San Francisco-based Twitter and a representative for Musk attorney Alex Spiro didn’t immediately reply to messages looking for comment.
While job cuts have been expected whatever the sale, the magnitude of Musk’s planned cuts are way more extreme than anything Twitter had planned. Musk himself has alluded to the necessity to cull a few of the company’s staff prior to now, but he hadn’t given a selected number — at the very least not publicly.
“A 75% headcount cut would indicate, at the very least out of the gates, stronger free money flow and profitability, which can be attractive to investors trying to get in on the deal,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. “That said, you may’t cut your solution to growth.”
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Ives added that such a drastic reduction in Twitter’s workforce would likely set the corporate back years.
Already, experts, nonprofits and even Twitter’s own staff have warned that pulling back investments on content moderation and data security could hurt Twitter and its users. With as drastic a discount as Musk could also be planning, the platform could quickly turn out to be overrun with harmful content and spam — the latter of which the Tesla CEO himself has said he’ll address if he becomes owner of the corporate.
After his initial $44 billion bid in April to purchase Twitter, Musk backed out of the deal, contending Twitter misrepresented the number of pretend “spam bot” accounts on its platform. Twitter sued, and a Delaware judge has given each side until Oct. 28 to work out details. Otherwise, there will probably be a trial in November.
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