Twitter Inc. CEO, Elon Musk announced in a BBC interview, conducted live on Twitter Spaces last Wednesday (April 12) that the company laid off 80% of its employees. The social media platform now has only 1,500 employees, a significant decrease from the previous number of under 8,000 employees at the time of his acquisition last October 2022.
Following the $44 billion acquisition, Musk laid off staff, including engineers responsible for repairing and preventing service disruptions.
Musk acknowledged some technical issues that Twitter faced but stated that this only happened for a short duration and was quickly resolved.
The massive layoffs were enacted due to the company experiencing a negative cash flow of $3 billion. Musk attributed this to the cyclical nature of ad spending and some politically-related factor.
Twitter’s extensive cost-cutting measures have begun to yield results as the majority of the advertisers have returned.
Despite the challenges, Elon Musk has no intention of selling Twitter, even for a sum of $44 billion. He has specified that he would contemplate selling the platform only if the purchaser were willing to uphold the same commitment to truthfulness as he does.