As part of his pitch to raise funds to acquire Twitter, Elon Musk apparently “drove” the idea of cutting jobs at Twitter to improve their bottom line. according to a Bloomberg report. “While nothing is set in stone, and Musk himself did not have access to Twitter’s non-public finances at the time, he did specifically mention job cuts” during conversations with banks, the report says.
There are still a lot of uncertainties about what Twitter will look like under Musk’s ownership, assuming that $44 billion deal announced Monday happens as expected. So far, the best indication of what he wants to do with the platform comes from his own words. in a press release:
Freedom of expression is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital public square where vital issues for the future of humanity are debated. I also want Twitter to be better than ever by improving the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has enormous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the user community to unlock it.
But potential job cuts have not been publicly discussed. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Given Musk’s many tweets about opening up free speech on the platform, including those criticizing Twitter’s past decisions that have drawn negative attention to employees — One area where Musk can cut back is the company’s policy department. Musk disbanded the public relations department in teslaso perhaps the Twitter communication groups could also be under scrutiny.
For bankers, Musk may have discussed ways to improve the bottom line, but he has publicly indicated that he is not interested in Twitter for the money. “This is not a way to make money”, Musk said at TED 2022 on April 14. “My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is highly trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important for the future of civilization. I don’t care about the economy at all.”