ELON MUSK HAS said Twitter laid off “nearly 8,000″ employees since he took over as CEO of the company in October 2022, in an interview with the BBC.
A large number of staff members were sacked or laid off within a month of his takeover late last year, and the billionare came in for major criticism over the short-notice methods he used to inform workers of their fates.
Musk said he knew that “drastic action” on staff numbers was needed, but conceded that his methods were “haphazard”.
He said he realised quickly that the company was spending too much money and described the platform, when he took it over, as a “non-profit”. According to Musk, when he acquired it, Twitter was on course to lose over $3 billion a year.
The social media giant, he said, was “definitely spending money as if it’s going out of fashion”.
The company was going to go bankrupt if costs were not cut immediately, he said.
James Clayton, the interviewer, asked Musk why he did not give the employees who were fired more notice of their termination.
Musk attempted to equate the situation to someone being told that they had four months to live but Clayton stopped him and asked, “How much are you worth?”
The businessman claimed to not know the answer yet Clayton insisted it was “[...] around the 200 billion mark. You’re framing it in a way it had a few months to live. You’re quite a rich man.”
“I sold a lot of Tesla stock to close this deal. I did not want to sell the Tesla stock,” Musk said. He bought Twitter for roughly $44 billion in October of 2022.
Musk later said that it was hard to let so many employees go, adding “It’s not fun at all. It’s painful.”
When questioned about Twitter outages and a backlash from engineers since the layoffs, Musk said, “Many of these people have said that Twitter will cease to function, their predictions have turned out not to be true.”
The entrepreneur said that the interview was a “good opportunity to answer some questions and maybe get some feedback too”.
Musk wasted no time to get into the topics and added “I know the BBC probably isn’t thrilled about being labelled state-affiliated media.”
Recently, a label appeared on the @BBC Twitter account which described the British national broadcaster as “government-funded media”.
Musk said, “Our goal is simply to be as truthful and accurate as possible. I think we’re adjusting the label to be ‘publicly funded’, which I think is not too objectionable. We’re trying to be accurate.”
Musk told the interviewer that Twitter plans on changing the label soon and said it will “probably be okay” to use the same language that the BBC uses to describe themselves as the social media company is “trying to be as accurate as possible”.
When Clayton asked Musk about his time as CEO of Twitter so far, the business magnate quickly replied, “Well, it’s not been boring. It’s been quite the rollercoaster.”
Musk added that the company is going “reasonably well” despite working with a “small fraction of the original headcount” and are seeing “all-time highs” in usage frequently. Musk said that the site is “more responsive than it was before the takeover”.
Clayton also challenged Musk on hate speech, saying that organisations, such as the Strategic Dialogue Institute in the United Kingdom, have found more hate speech on Twitter since Musk’s acquisition.
Musk said, “People will say all sorts of nonsense. I’m literally asking for a single example and you can’t name one.”
Clayton said he was unable to provide any examples because he has not used the new ‘For You’ feature on the platform, despite saying to Musk, “I would see more hateful content, personally.”
On the issue of legacy-verified blue ticks on the platform, Musk said they would be removed from accounts by the end of next week.
Former Twitter executive Bruce Daisley told the BBC the interview “gave us some insight into the strange life of this billionaire”.
Musk has an estimated personal fortune of almost $190 billion.
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