Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk today reacted to the layoffs on the micro-blogging site, saying there is no option for him as the company is losing $4 million per day. He said the sacked employees were given 50 per cent more severance than the legally required norms. Musk said in a tweet, “With regards to Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately, there is no alternative when the company is losing more than $4M/day. Everyone who opted out would get a 3-month severance.” was offered, which is 50% more than what is legally required.”
In another tweet, he said that Twitter’s commitment to content moderation remains unchanged. “Again, to be clear, Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged. In fact, we’ve actually seen hate speech several times this week fall below *below* our prior norms, which You can read that in the press,” Musk said.
Twitter started laying off its employees from all workspaces yesterday and this affected India too. According to reports, several Indian employees, including the entire marketing and communication team in the country, were sacked.
Musk also said Twitter faced a lot of difficulty, with active groups pressuring its advertisers to stop spending on Twitter. “Recently we had a lot of difficulty with activist groups pressuring major advertisers to stop spending money on Twitter. This is despite us doing everything we can to please them and make it clear that the moderation rules And the (inaudible) conduct rules haven’t changed and we continue to enforce them. Many major advertisers have stopped spending on Twitter ….. activist groups have been able to drive a huge drop in Twitter’s ad revenue, and We have tried our best to make them happy and nothing is working,” Musk said in a video interview.
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The billionaire said Twitter was facing serious revenue challenges and cost challenges before acquisition talks began. Responding to the hate speech on Twitter, Musk said, “It’s not okay to engage in hate speech on Twitter. So, we’ve actually done, like the big targeted attacks, where people temporarily put some hate speech on Twitter, But they were taken. Immediately down. So now, what I’m trying to achieve is enable everyone to verify payments with Twitter Blue, to verify the payments of as many people as possible Have to try.”
Musk, the world’s richest man, is looking to cut some 3,700 Twitter staff, or nearly half, as he seeks to reduce costs and calls for a new work ethic. Musk has said that Twitter will charge verified users $8 per month if they want to continue to have blue ticks.
(with agency input)