Changes Afoot at Twitter After Musk Completes Purchase
November 1, 2022
Elon Musk , known as the richest man in the world from some of his famous companies such as Tesla and SpaceX, had just bought Twitter over a 6 month period of just a “quick” check of $44 billion dollars. Twitter was plenished with over 7,000 workers at the end of 2021, but ended up with nearly 2,000 employees currently in 2022.
Before Musk bought Twitter, he had suspicions on whether it was worth it to buy Twitter or not due to a couple of reasons. First of all, the number of bots Musk was worried about was one of the factors why this deal has been going out for 6 months. Some say that was an excuse that Musk decided to create because he didn’t have enough money to afford.
September 26, 2022, Twitter employees sent an open letter that was addressed to Elon Musk and was published in the Time Magazine. The letter reads, ” Elon Musk’s plan to lay off 75% of Twitter workers will hurt Twitter’s ability to serve the public conversation. A threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation.” Employees believe that this would not only hurt themselves, but also to the users that go on this app to view and post content. By firing over half of the Twitter employee population, it makes the users feel like the app isn’t being well maintained .
Musk’s plan by owning Twitter is to create a more “free speech” environment without being oppressed to getting posts taken down. That being said, he doesn’t mean a free for all site where anyone can say anything. Although those two contradict themselves, what he’s trying to explain is he would revoke bans on certain people that he believed shouldn’t have been banned (including Donald Trump).
Getting fired left and right, CEO Parag Agrawal and other executives had been fired at Musk’s hand. Questions still roam as the reason for Musk’s removal of employees was “for cause.”
Wayne Hills Student, Andrea Fitzgerald , had some comments on Elon Musk’s “change” to Twitter. She said, “I think he did what he should have. The employees wouldn’t be a very good fit for what he was trying to accomplish.”
Though nobody actually knows the true reason why Elon Musk is firing all of his employees, it is clear he is on a path towards keeping his employee circle small and private, just like how he wants to make the company.