Twitter Inc. made extensive layoff plans as part of a whirlwind that lasted several days, during which new boss Elon Musk fired top executives, said it was the cause, tried to convince users and advertisers about content moderation, and continued to host jokes and controversy on the site did
The proposed cuts are being reviewed by Mr. Musk, who made the social media platform private Thursday’s $44 billion deal, the company is expected to cut engineering positions and affect other areas as well, according to a person familiar with the plans. According to a statement released earlier this year, Twitter has about 7,500 employees. The full extent of the cuts being discussed could not be determined.
Mr. musk CEO of Twitter was fired Parag Agrawal and three other senior executives say they will not be required to pay the expected multimillion-dollar stiff packages, according to the reason and two people familiar with the matter. Departing executives are weighing their options, one of the people said. Mr. Agrawal did not respond to a request for comment.
Two of Twitter’s top executives were set to collect more than $100 million in hefty packages, according to estimates by Equilar, a compensation data and analysis company, based on previously disclosed securities figures.
After receiving mr. Musk is working with a group of partners that includes former Twitter product head and venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan and attorney Alex Spiro. Mr. Krishnan tweeted on Sunday that he was helping Mr S. Musk “temporarily with some great people” on Twitter.
Twitter has posted losses in eight of its last 10 fiscal years, according to FactSet. Musk’s takeover comes at a time when the social media industry is facing the most turbulent business environment in its history.
Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc. scared off investors with decreasing income and a commitment to spend tens of billions more setting up the metaverse, which has yet to attract a significant user base. Market value of Meta It fell below 300 billion dollars For the first time since the beginning of 2016. YouTube posted the first one a decline in advertising revenue, while Snap Inc. is the parent of Snapchat. ‘s working on a hypothesis warned investors no revenue growth this quarter compared to a year ago.
One of the first issues, sir. Musk aims to keep costs under control, according to people familiar with the matter. He told employees in June According to people who watched the virtual meeting at the time, Twitter believed the spending was “not a good situation.” He did not rule out layoffs at the time, adding that anyone who contributed significantly to people should not be worried. The New York Times previously reported on Twitter’s job-cutting plans and the seriousness issue.
Several employees said that Mr. Musk could move to cut jobs before November. 1 is a date for Twitter’s compensation program. The workers’ grants were expected to be paid in cash after Mr. President. Musk’s acquisition, according to people familiar with the matter. A number of employees expressed their concern about Mr. President. Musk may try to avoid making those payments if he is terminated before November. 1.
Ask the WSJ
The Musk-Twitter Deal
WSJ finance editor Charles Forelle and WSJ Twitter reporter Alexa Corse discuss Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. What does the future hold for the platform? And what does this deal mean for Mr. Musk’s business empire?
“That’s a lie,” mr. Musk tweeted Sunday evening in response to a tweet in a New York Times article that highlighted the concern.
On Thursday, Mr. Musk took steps to reassure Madison Avenue, publishing a letter saying he strongly believes “advertising, when done right, can delight, entertain and inform you.” On Friday, he told advertisers that Twitter would “establish a content moderation board with very diverse views.” He added: “There will be no major content decisions or score resets before these board conventions.”
Some advertisers expressed concern that Mr. Musk’s commitment to free speech will lead to an increase in content that may be offensive to some users, or at least inappropriate to advertisers.
“Twitter’s ad business is already in shambles,” said Jasmine Enberg, senior analyst at Insider Intelligence, a market research firm. In recent days, he said that Mr. Musk “needs to set clear guidelines for why content moderation it will look like it will want to keep advertisers around.
Twitter spent part of the weekend fixing some of the content issues that arose in the wake of Mr. Ronalding. Capturing the mask.
In recent days, several nonprofits, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Network Contagion Research Institute, have pointed to a sudden increase in hate speech on the platform.
The ADL, a Jewish advocacy group that investigates anti-Semitism in the United States, has identified more than 1,200 tweets and retweets that spread anti-Semitic memes and that coordinated effort that the takeover of Mr. Musk. The Network Contagion Research Institute, which studies online social threats, said in a tweet on Friday Use of the N-word It’s up 500% on Twitter in the last 12 hours.
National Basketball Association star LeBron James referred to the information Tweeting Saturday, “I don’t know Elon Musk and tbh, I could care less who owns twitter. But I will say that if this is true, I hope that he and his people take it very seriously, because it is scary.” He added: “So many damn useless people say hate speech is free speech.”
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, said on Saturday that a small number of accounts were behind many of the offensive or hateful tweets, including 50,000 tweets containing racial slurs from 300 accounts. The company is taking steps to ban users involved in the “trolling campaign” and will continue to work to fix the problem, he said.
Mr. Musk also caused controversy. On Sunday morning, he tweeted a link to an internet post that speculatively questioned what happened in the violent attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband on Friday morning. “There is a small possibility that there may be more to this story than meets the eye,” said Mr. Musk tweeted. He later deleted the tweet.
– Sara E. Needleman contributed to this article.
type At Alexa Corse alexa.corse@wsj.com and Salvador Rodríguez at salvador.rodriguez@wsj.com
Copyright © 2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
