Elon Musk has laid off greater than 6,000 folks at Twitter since taking up the corporate, he instructed the BBC in a uncommon interview late Tuesday.
Musk was quoted as saying within the interview that the social media platform now has only one,500 staff, down from underneath 8,000 who have been employed on the time of his acquisition. The discount equates to roughly 80% of the corporate’s workers.
It’s “not enjoyable in any respect” and might typically be “painful,” the billionaire CEO instructed the British broadcaster at Twitter’s head workplace in San Francisco.
The world’s second richest man mentioned that “drastic motion” was wanted when he got here on board, as a result of the corporate was dealing with “a $3 billion adverse money circulation scenario.” That left Twitter with solely “4 months to dwell,” he estimated.
“This isn't a caring [or] uncaring scenario. It’s like, if the entire ship sinks, then no one’s received a job,” Musk mentioned.
Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion final October.
After initially providing to take over the corporate in April 2022, he tried to get out of the deal, citing considerations over what number of bot accounts it had. He has since radically overhauled Twitter: firing high executives, slashing jobs and enacting new insurance policies on how consumer accounts are verified or labeled.
Since then, Twitter is now “roughly” breaking even and advertisers are returning to the platform, he instructed the BBC.
Musk additionally pledged to revise the label utilized to the British broadcaster, from “government-funded” to “publicly-funded” after the BBC objected.
The designation was added over the weekend. The BBC had protested the transfer, saying that it “is, and all the time has been, unbiased.”
“We're funded by the British public via the licence price,” it mentioned on the time.
Musk additionally weighed in on US scrutiny of TikTok, saying that whereas he was not a consumer of the Chinese language-owned app, he was often “towards banning issues.”
“I imply, it might assist Twitter, I suppose, if TikTok was banned, as a result of then folks would spend extra time on Twitter and fewer on TikTok,” he mused.
“However although that may assist Twitter, I'd be typically towards banning of issues.”
Musk additionally cracked jokes through the interview, saying that he was “not the CEO of Twitter” and had been changed by his pet canine, a Shiba Inu named Floki.
The-CNN-Wire
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