social media
First week owned by Elon Musk rocks Twitter
The Twitter logo hangs on the outside of the offices at 249 17th Street in Chelsea, New York. photo
© Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
As a user of Twitter, Elon Musk is extremely skilled, and as an owner, it took him just a week to throw the service into chaos. Massive job cuts are accompanied by a slump in revenues.
While Twitter’s employees fear for their jobs, Elon Musk exudes optimism. “I think it could be one of the most valuable companies in the world,” the tech billionaire said in a surprise appearance at an investment conference in New York on Friday. Meanwhile, employees are receiving emails telling them if they still work at Twitter. Media reports that around every second job will be lost seem to be confirmed.
The first interim report a week after completing Musk’s $44 billion Twitter purchase is sobering. Sales plummet because advertisers like Volkswagen and Pfizer want to stop or put their ads on hold. According to Musk, the company loses more than four million dollars a day – which also made the job cuts inevitable.
Twitter is now owned by one of its loudest, most well-known, and most controversial users. Musk’s Twitter account is the source for official information on how this is going. He himself still prefers to respond to tweets from users with similar opinions to his on the platform. They mostly have right views.
Large customers keep their distance
Advertisers like VW are keeping their distance, worried that Musk’s online network could become an even bigger playground for hate speech, hate speech and disinformation. Musk himself lamented a “massive drop in revenue” on Friday and accused “activist groups” of pressuring advertising partners. The advertising business is by far Twitter’s most important source of income, over 90 percent of the group’s sales go back to it.
Musk’s solution: He threatens advertisers who suspend their ad budgets with “thermonuclear naming and shame.” The tweet follows a right-wing Internet lobbyist’s suggestion that they be named so that a “counter-boycott” can be called for. The Musk phenomenon on Twitter includes a noisy crowd of loyal fans who attack almost anyone who criticizes or doubts him.
Such threats should go down much better with these fans than with the advertisers. As is the fact that the new Twitter owner, with more than 110 million followers, promptly shared a sleazy conspiracy theory.
Big wave of layoffs
Meanwhile, job cuts are causing deep uncertainty in the company itself. Employees were dismissed by email on Friday, but there was no official information on the number. Musk wants to reduce the number of employees from around 7,500 by about half, according to media reports. Manager Yoel Roth, who is responsible for removing hate speech, among other things, seemed to confirm the magnitude. Only 15 percent of the jobs in his area have been cut, instead of around 50 percent company-wide, he wrote on Twitter on Saturday night.
What is certain is that the bloodletting shook the company. Also because the layoffs are anonymous and chaotic. “Looks like I’m not employed anymore. I just got remotely logged out of my work laptop,” one employee tweeted Thursday. “It’s so sad that it ended like this”.
Musk “sole director”
Ever since Musk delisted and privately owned Twitter a week ago on Friday, it doesn’t appear to have had a governance structure typical of larger companies. Immediately after taking over, he fired top management, dissolved the board of directors and appointed himself “sole director”. All power on Twitter now rests with Musk. And he wants to significantly reduce costs – in view of the red figures and immense debts that the company was saddled with when it was taken over, the pressure is high.
Meanwhile, it looked like Musk was trying to run Twitter via Twitter. According to media reports, while his confidants such as tech entrepreneur Jason Calacanis intervened in the company’s machinery, he threw ideas around on Twitter, such as that users could get different versions of the service “like age ratings in the cinema”.
In the end, it became concrete with the idea of giving the previously free verification tick only to customers of the paid subscription offer Twitter Blue. For eight instead of five dollars a month. The uproar among users was great – high fees would be due for large newspapers with hundreds of journalists alone. And then the “New York Times” also reported that, according to internal documents, it doesn’t look as if you would actually have to identify yourself for this. Today you can be sure that there is actually a person behind a verified account. It is now unclear whether this will still be the case later.
Musk tweet on advertisers Lobbyist Davis Roth tweet on job cuts Musk tweet on daily losses Bloomberg on Mail Full circular on Twitter Report of ‘Washington Post’ employee lawsuit Musk tweet on activists ‘New York Times’ on layoffs