Musk tells Twitter staff to expect job cuts and push for 1bn users
TWITTER staff hoping for reassurance from their future boss have been left disappointed after Elon Musk used his first address to tell them job cuts are top of his agenda.
The billionaire entrepreneur spoke to Twitter’s 7,500 staffers directly for the first time yesterday, appearing via video link to answer questions and set out his plans.
Mr Musk, until recently the world’s richest person, warned employees that he intends to lead a “rationalisation of headcount” once he takes control of the company. He told Twitter employees he would also curtail a blanket work-fromhome policy so only “excellent contributors” can continue working remotely, Bloomberg reported.
The crackdown forms part of ambitious plans to grow Twitter to one billion users, Mr Musk said.
Twitter has about 229m users and, at its current rate of growth, should reach a billion users in just over a decade. The appearance followed weeks of worry and uncertainty for staff after Mr Musk struck a $44bn (£36bn) agreement to buy the social media site before raising doubts about the deal in a series of tweets. The Tesla boss said the transaction was “on hold” while he investigated the number of “bots” and fake accounts on Twitter.
Asked about his approach to moderation, Mr Musk said Twitter users should be allowed to post “pretty outrageous things” so long as they stay within the law, coining the slogan “freedom of speech and freedom of reach”.
The Tesla boss described himself as having “moderate politics” and claimed he had always voted for the Democratic Party until recently.
Other questions from Twitter staff focused on Mr Musk’s ongoing tussle with Twitter management over the number of fake accounts on the site. Twitter has admitted that 5pc of its 229m active accounts are bots, which are not operated by humans. Mr Musk has challenged this number, prompting an offer from chief executive Parag Agrawal to give the billionaire access to the “firehose” of every single tweet as it is posted so he can work it out for himself.
Mr Musk told staff: “It needs to be much more expensive to have a troll army.” The Tesla boss has so far secured around $30bn of equity commitments towards the $44bn acquisition.
Described as “rambling” by one Twitter staff source who spoke to Reuters, Mr Musk closed the hour-long call by saying he has seen “no actual evidence” of alien life forms.