Elon Musk will soon become the owner of Twitter and is said to be planning to lay off 75% of employees to cut costs.
Twitter currently employs about 7,500 people. However, according to a report in the Washington Post, a huge percentage (perhaps 75%) could be laid off from the company once the acquisition deal between Twitter and Elon Musk is finalized. Musk is said to have told potential investors that he is planning drastic layoffs to cut costs.
Elon Musk has until October 28 to close the Twitter purchase. In a sign that the deal is moving forward, Twitter has frozen employees , according to Bloomberg.
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Musk's appointment at the helm of the company will bring several changes. However, it is worth noting that the layoffs were planned anyway. Before Musk's offer, Twitter management planned to cut almost a quarter of its workforce in order to reduce costs. These layoffs would remove $800 million from payroll. Therefore, even if something changes and the billionaire's acquisition does not go through, a percentage of employees will see the exit door. However, it is said that the cuts planned by Elon Musk are larger.
Elon Musk reportedly said he was “obviously overpaying” for Twitter, and a general partner at one of the companies involved in the deal told Business Insider that “We’re all trying to get out of this, to be honest.” According to the Washington Post, Elon Musk told investors that his goal is to double Twitter’s revenue in three years, without explaining how that would happen.
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If Elon Musk does indeed fire three-quarters of Twitter’s staff, it would be by far the largest permanent layoff in the tech world. Facebook recently put 15% of its employees on “Performance Improvement Plans ,” supposedly a prelude to an unknown number of “quiet layoffs.” Microsoft , Coinbase , and Snap have also made cuts in recent times. Intel is also reportedly set to announce thousands of layoffs .
The impact of the layoffs could be felt immediately by millions of Twitter users, said Edwin Chen, a data scientist who was formerly responsible for Twitter's spam and health metrics. Twitter has a large workforce, but the cuts Elon Musk is said to have proposed are "unimaginable" and could put Twitter users at risk of hacks and exposure to offensive material such as child pornography.
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However, for now, the company has no confirmation from Musk about his plans.
We don't really know what Musk intends to do, and whether what he tells investors is accurate. Previously, it was reported that Elon Musk intended to strengthen Twitter's workforce, with 1,000 additional hires (mostly engineers) coming from the end of 2022 onwards, although some layoffs were always in the plan.
The acquisition deal is expected to be completed next week, so we will soon learn the new owner's plans.
