This Thursday, June 16, Elon Musk spoke to Twitter employees and answered many of their questions. A long-awaited intervention, given the climate of uncertainty that reigns internally; many employees indeed doubt the billionaire’s ability to lead a large social network. Layoffs, telecommuting, features… Musk has covered many topics, here is a summary of his main releases.
Dismissals and telework… Answers that can sow doubt
The themes of layoffs and telecommuting are probably among those that preoccupy Twitter employees the most since the announcement of Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform, especially since the latter forced Tesla employees to spend at least forty hours a week at the office. Currently, more than 1,500 Twitter employees use telework, and Jack Dorsey had nothing against this practice, which he even wanted to democratize.
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“ If someone can only work remotely, and they’re exceptional, it wouldn’t make sense to fire them. Definitely not in favor of things that are crazy “, said Elon Musk about it. He also added that his bias is strongly in favor of in-person work, but that managers can decide which of their employees can work remotely, as is the practice at Tesla.
Musk also touched on the economic situation of the social network and said that at “ the costs currently exceed the revenues “, adding that” it’s not a good situation “. Asked about possible layoffs, the billionaire assured that anyone who is a major contributor should not have to worry, which did not necessarily reassure employees.
Musk’s vision for the future of Twitter
One of the questions was about Musk’s ambition to become Twitter’s CEO or not once the acquisition is complete, to which he responded vaguely by saying he was not interested in ” securities “, reports the wall street journal. In five to ten years, Elon Musk wants to see the number of Twitter users increase from 229 million to over a billion.
He further touted the merits of more ” fun like TikTok and WeChat, platforms he would like to take inspiration from for the future of Twitter. He also reiterated that he was not against advertising as a model, noting that it is very important to Twitter’s business, but both ads and following are essential to increasing revenue. He added that the ads should be entertaining and that he didn’t want to let companies advertise ” bad products “.
Elon Musk has brought up the idea of having to pay to be verified on Twitter. Photography: Marten Bjork / Unsplash
The world’s richest man has floated the idea that users should pay to be verified as a real human user, through a tool like the Twitter Blue subscription service. He also proposed that Twitter use verification as a way to rank content on the platform, its goal being to ” maximize the usefulness of the service “.
Unsurprisingly, Elon Musk was also asked about his vision of freedom of expression. As a reminder, he did not oppose a potential return of Donald Trump on the platform. He thus distinguished between freedom of speech and freedom of access. According to him, that means people should be allowed to say some pretty outrageous things within the law, but they don’t necessarily deserve to have their tweets amplified and go viral on Twitter.
Reactions ” inflamed » internally
Since the announcement of the acquisition of Twitter last April for 44 billion dollars, Elon Musk continues to create controversy. He has indeed declared the acquisition frozen pending more details on the volume of fake accounts and spam present on the social network. He then wanted to revise the redemption price downwards and also accused the platform’s leaders of ” retention of information on fake accounts.
If his speech to the employees has shed light on his vision for the future of the social network, it is not certain that the latter will be reassured. Bloomberg indeed reports that the billionaire’s remarks on telework elicited very ” inflamed on the company’s internal messaging service, Slack.
Twitter wants to hold a shareholder vote on the takeover deal later this summer and close it soon after, barring unforeseen developments. For his part, Elon Musk promised that he would come back for another question and answer session.