Tech billionaire says Twitter needs to be financially healthy.
(Photo: AP)
san francisco Elon Musk is setting the bar high for Twitter. At the first question-and-answer session with employees of the US short message service, the Tesla boss announced the goal of increasing the number of users to at least one billion. Twitter currently has 229 million. At the same time, Musk, who announced the Twitter takeover for $44 billion in April, wants to handle growth with fewer employees.
In his opinion, job cuts are necessary, said the richest man in the world according to Forbes at the video conference. Just like an austerity course: “At the moment the costs exceed the income.” But everyone who is relevant to the company has nothing to fear. At the end of last year, Twitter had 7,500 employees. Facebook comes to 45,000 for comparison.
It was Musk’s first time answering questions from the Twitter workforce. He arrived ten minutes late for the video conference and pondered the existence of extraterrestrials. Twitter should help “civilization and consciousness,” said Musk, who otherwise gave few details about the takeover, which recently made many headlines.
However, Musk once again emphasized his opposition to the home office, but said that if someone is “extraordinary”, it can probably be allowed. He said he’s sticking with ads, just to make sure they’re “as entertaining as possible.” It is still unclear when the deal will go through. Many employees expressed disappointment on the internal communication channel Slack.
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Twitter stock fell more than 2 percent in later trading, but outperformed Tesla. For the paper of the world’s largest electric car manufacturer, it went down ten percent. Musk has offered $54.20 per Twitter share, the current price is around 37 euros. Many observers assume that Musk is trying to lower the purchase price. Most recently, the billionaire threatened to call off the deal if the company didn’t provide more information about false accounts.
More: Twitter expects shareholder vote on Musk bid by early August