Musk pushes to make money from Twitter

SAN FRANCISCO>> Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, is throwing everything against the wall to make more money at the social media company.

Since closing his $ 44 billion acquisition of Twitter last week, Musk and his advisers have discussed adding paid direct messages — which would let users send private messages to high-profile users — to the service, according to two people with knowledge of the matter and internal documents viewed by The New York Times.

They also talked about adding “paywalled” videos, which would mean that certain videos could not be viewed unless users paid a fee, these people said. And they have discussed reviving Vine, a onetime short-form video platform, which could attract a younger audience coveted by advertisers.

This week, Musk moved to make money from Twitter’s “blue check” verification program, a method of making sure users are who they say they are. The billionaire announced that the program, which is currently free, will be rolled into the “Twitter Blue” subscription service, which will offer enhanced features for a monthly $8 fee.

The frenzy of product development underlines the pressure that Musk, the world’s richest man, is under to deliver immediate results — and returns — on the technology industry’s largest leveraged buyout. To finance his Twitter deal, he loaded the company with $13 billion in debt, putting it on the hook to pay more than $1 billion annually in interest alone.

But last year Twitter had less than $1 billion in cash flow, partly because of a one-time charge. The company was also unprofitable for eight of the past 10 years. So Musk must boost Twitter’s revenue or cut costs — or do both.

Musk will begin laying off Twitter employees today. Twitter employees were notified in a companywide email that the layoffs were set to begin, according to a copy of the message seen by The New York Times.

About half the company’s workers appeared set to lose their jobs, according to internal messages and an investor, although the final count may take time to become clear.

The email instructed Twitter employees to go home and not return to the offices today as the cuts proceeded.

Rumors of impending layoffs have been swirling at Twitter.

On Wednesday, employees took note of a Slack message that suggested 3,738 people could be laid off.

Musk also is trying to minimize Twitter’s infrastructure costs. In meetings with engineers, his advisers have proposed saving $1 million to $ 3 million in infrastructure costs a day, said three people familiar with the talks.