Elon Musk Twitter Takeover: Billionaire’s Massive Job Cuts Plan, Revealed
Thousands of people are at risk of losing their jobs at Twitter after Elon Musk told prospective investors that he plans to get rid of about 75% of the social media company's employees. This would be part of his plan to take over Twitter.
The Washington Post obtained several documents that revealed the billionaire's plans to get rid of three-quarters of the social media company's 7,500 workers. This would mean that he plans to fire around 5,500 workers, which leaves only around 2,000 employees still at the company.
Experts pointed out that this would not be enough to stamp down on misinformation that is prevailing across all social media platforms. Users would also feel the effects of the layoffs.
Edward Chen, who previously headed Twitter's spam and health metrics, stated that while he believed Twitter was overstaffed, Musk's plans to cut jobs was "unimaginable." He told the Washington Post that these cuts would "be a cascading effect where you'd have service going down and the people remaining not having the institutional knowledge to get them back up." Chen also said that the remaining workers would be "completely demoralized and wanting to leave themselves."
Another expert, corporate governance expert Neil Minow, thinks Musk is likely "just shopping ambitious plans to potential investors." However, the expert also pointed out that he will be having trouble in following through with those proposals.
"He's got to be able to show if he makes those cuts, what happens next?" asked Minow, and then followed it up by asking "What's he gonna replace it with, AI?"
Twitter Already Planning To Cut Jobs Before Elon Musk Took Over, but He Increased It
According to the Daily Mail, Twitter was already planning to cut several jobs prior to Musk's takeover, around one quarter or 25%. However, with Musk, the number of planned layoffs actually tripled, with experts noting that the effects of this would be massive.
Last year, Twitter spent around $1.5 billion on personnel. It was noted that the company wanted to reduce that amount by around $800 million. In addition, management also wanted to make major cuts to infrastructure by getting rid of several data centers that help keep the site running.
Yahoo! News reported that Twitter's human resources previously told employees that they were not planning for mass layoffs. However, company documents have shown that Twitter had plans to push out staff and cut down on infrastructure costs before Musk even announced plans to buy the company.
Elon Musk Admits He Paid Too Much To Buy Twitter
Musk admitted to investors that he had paid too much to obtain the company. It was pointed out that his $54.20 per share offer was around a third higher than the company's share price at the time he bought them.
Musk promised investors he would double revenue in three years, as well as triple the number of daily users that could view ads around that time period. However, many have pointed out that he is facing an uphill battle to save the social media company, as he has offered little information about how he would accomplish these goals.
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This article is owned by Latin Post.
Written by: Rick Martin
WATCH: Musk Says He’s ‘Overpaying’ for Twitter - Bloomberg Markets and Finance
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