Twitter board agrees to $44 billion sale to billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk

[Ralin]

Other than giving Russia basically everything they want and Ukraine nothing?

It's well shy of what Russia wants because what Putin wants is all of Ukraine and the end of Ukranian identity as a thing.

What do you think "Ukraine remains neutral" means ?

Because I think it means they stay out of NATO. Which means they get nothing to discourage Russia attempting to invade again when they have rebuilt enough of their military to succeed.

Russia actually being trusted to follow the terms is a big part of 'if they could be implemented.'

As for the other points, they are all having Ukraine give in to Russian aggression here.

Well yeah it's shitty, but any sort of negotiated peace would be and this would mostly limit it to places that more or less want to be part of Russia in this scenario. I think that's better than any end of the war that doesn't involve Ukraine decisively winning the war on the battlefield and the Russian military retreating from all occupied areas.

Not to derail, but this is the moderate position and I find it unremarkable.

[bilateralrope]

I think that's better than any end of the war that doesn't involve Ukraine decisively winning the war on the battlefield and the Russian military retreating from all occupied areas.

Ukraine winning on the battlefield looks possible right now. The russian forces are being pushed back because they are suffering from a lack of training and equipment. While Ukraine forces are getting a steady supply of equipment and training from the west. Russia is relying on conscripts, while Ukraine forces are currently turning away volunteers.

[Ralin]

I think that's better than any end of the war that doesn't involve Ukraine decisively winning the war on the battlefield and the Russian military retreating from all occupied areas.

Ukraine winning on the battlefield looks possible right now. The russian forces are being pushed back because they are suffering from a lack of training and equipment. While Ukraine forces are getting a steady supply of equipment and training from the west. Russia is relying on conscripts, while Ukraine forces are currently turning away volunteers.

Entirely possible and I didn't say I agree with Musk. Only that I don't consider it an outrageous or unusual take.

Anyway, this is getting off topic.

[bilateralrope]

Twitter trial is still on, and Elon Musk probably deleted some Signal messages, judge says

By ELIZABETH LOPATTO / @mslopatto

Oct 6, 2022, 7:24 AM GMT+13

The Twitter trial is still on, says Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick in a new legal filing this morning. The judge — who is supervising the bench trial where Twitter is attempting to force Elon Musk to buy the company for $44 billion, as he agreed to do in April — says she has not received any filings for a stay, and so the lawyers should press full-steam ahead.

Musk’s deposition is scheduled for tomorrow. One of the contentious issues in the case is whether Musk has turned over all records in his possession. In particular, Musk’s advocacy for privacy-focused messaging service Signal has led Twitter’s lawyers to suggest there are messages he should have turned over and didn’t.

In McCormick’s letter today, she says she believes Musk did use Signal. “I am forced to conclude that it is likely Defendant’s custodians permitted the automatic deletion of responsive Signal communications between them and possibly others, and that those communications are irretrievably lost,” she writes. Twitter has requested sanctions against Musk, but McCormick hasn’t decided on whether she’ll sanction him yet.

Yesterday, Musk filed a letter with the Securities and Exchange Commission saying that actually, he’ll complete the deal he initially negotiated — as long as Twitter drops its suit.

Looks like nobody trusts Musk's word this time.

Also the judge isn't happy with Musk for allowing Signal to delete communications that should have been handed over in discovery.

[bilateralrope]

The judge granted a short stay. Just in case Musk is going to follow through with his promises this time.

But if he doesn't, I don't think the judge is going to be happy when it comes time for the trial.

Elon Musk can’t be trusted to complete merger, Twitter tells judge

Twitter says there's a financing problem and that Musk won't commit to closing date.
JON BRODKIN - 10/8/2022, 5:25 AM

Elon Musk's latest promise to buy Twitter can't be trusted, the company told a Delaware Court of Chancery judge yesterday.

"Now, on the eve of trial, Defendants declare they intend to close after all. 'Trust us,' they say, 'we mean it this time,' and so they ask to be relieved from a reckoning on the merits," Twitter wrote in a filing that opposed Musk's motion to stay the trial. "To justify that relief, they propose an order that allows them an indefinite time to close on the basis of a conditional withdrawal of their unlawful notices of termination coupled with an explicit reservation of all 'claims and defenses in the event a closing does not occur.' Defendants' proposal is an invitation to further mischief and delay."

While Musk told the court that debt financing needed to complete the purchase is on track, Twitter's filing said there is a problem:

Just this morning, a corporate representative for one of the lending banks testified that Mr. Musk has yet to send them a borrowing notice and has not otherwise communicated to them that he intends to close the transaction, let alone on any particular timeline. The bank further testified that the main task necessary to close the deal—memorializing the debt financing—could have happened in July but didn't because Mr. Musk purported to terminate the deal.

Judge Kathaleen McCormick granted Musk's motion for a stay yesterday, preventing the trial from beginning on October 17 as scheduled. But she seems to have taken Twitter's concerns into account because McCormick's grant of the stay does not give Musk "an indefinite time to close." If Musk doesn't complete the purchase of Twitter by October 28, a new trial would be scheduled for November.

"This action is stayed until 5 p.m. on October 28, 2022, to permit the parties to close on the transaction. If the transaction does not close by 5 p.m. on October 28, 2022, the parties are instructed to contact me by email that evening to obtain November 2022 trial dates," McCormick wrote.

Musk is the obstacle, Twitter says
Musk's motion for a stay blasted Twitter for wanting to continue litigation, claiming that "Twitter will not take yes for an answer" and is "recklessly putting the deal at risk and gambling with their stockholders' interests."

Twitter's response said Musk should have completed the merger long ago:

The obstacle to terminating this litigation is not, as Defendants say, that Twitter is unwilling to take yes for an answer. The obstacle is that Defendants still refuse to accept their contractual obligations. For months, Defendants have pursued increasingly implausible claims and over and over sought to delay trial on the merits to enforce the Merger Agreement. Discovery has shown each and every one of those claims to be utterly without merit. It has also shown that Defendants have repeatedly breached their obligation to exercise reasonable best efforts to move toward closing. The merger should have closed long ago, as Defendants' recent concessions confirm.

Musk's motion said that "Debt Financing parties are working cooperatively to fund the close, and closing is expected on or around October 28." But Twitter's reply said the defendants "refuse to commit to any closing date. They ask for an open-ended out, at the expense of Twitter's stockholders (who are owed $44 billion plus interest), all the while remaining free to change their minds again."

“Twitter is entitled to its day in court”

Twitter wrote that Musk's proposed order sought a stay "[w]ithout any admission of liability and without waiver of or prejudice to [their] claims and defenses." Twitter said this provision would let Musk "invent new grounds" to avoid completing the merger.

Twitter also said Musk "provided no justification" for failing to complete the merger already and breached the obligation to use "'reasonable best efforts' to close the merger and to 'do... all things necessary, proper or advisable' to close the financing at or before closing." The merger agreement requires Musk to close the deal within two business days of all conditions being met, a date that "came and went on September 15," Twitter said. (Twitter shareholders approved the merger on September 13.)

Twitter's filing ended with a plea to maintain the October 17 trial date—but also said the merger could be finished next week. "Until Defendants commit to close as required, Twitter is entitled to its day in Court, to demonstrate its entitlement to specific performance and prove Defendants' breaches so as to ensure complete relief in the event the closing should for any reason not occur," the filing said. "Defendants can and should close next week. Until they do, this action is not moot and should be brought to trial."

[bilateralrope]

Top Twitter executives fired as Elon Musk takes control of social media giant

Faiz Siddiqui and Elizabeth Dwoskin
15:19, Oct 28 2022

Elon Musk became Twitter's owner late Thursday (local time) as his US$44 billion (NZ$75b) deal to take over the company closed, marking a new era for one of the world's most influential social media platforms.

As one of his first moves, he fired several top Twitter executives, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. One of those confirmed the deal had closed.

CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety, were all fired, according to the people. Sean Edgett, the company's general counsel, was also pushed out, one of the people said. The top executives were hastily shuttled from the building, the people said.

Musk's moves late Thursday signal his intentions to put his stamp firmly on one of the world's most influential social media companies. Musk has publicly criticised Twitter's outgoing management over product decisions and content moderation, as well as saying he would restore former US president Donald Trump's account.

Still, "Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!" Musk tweeted Thursday.

The closure of the deal ended a months-long roller-coaster saga in which the billionaire - the world's richest person - conducted a hostile takeover to buy the company at an inflated price, only to renege on the deal and then enter into a bitter legal battle with the social network.

But in recent days, Musk appeared resigned, and even enthusiastic, about his impending ownership. He showed up at the company's offices unexpectedly on Wednesday (local time), carrying a sink to suggest that the message that he would become owner needed to "sink in”, according to a photo he posted to his more than 100 million Twitter followers.

He plans to hold a company-wide town hall on Friday (local time).

Neither Twitter nor the executives responded immediately to a request for comment.

The moves place the heralded entrepreneur at the helm of one of the world's most powerful communication platforms just days ahead of major elections in the US and Brazil.

Musk, a transportation magnate who is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has offered some clues about what he would do when he took over Twitter - despite having no experience running a social media service.

He has suggested that he wants to loosen standards for the policing of harmful content such as misinformation and hate speech. He has also decried so-called censorship by social media companies.

He has repeatedly criticised the company and supported online attacks against individual executives. He has told potential investors and partners that he wants to execute a financial turnaround of the company by firing nearly 75% of the workforce and leaning into new business opportunities, including having people subscribe to exclusive content from popular influencers on the service.

Musk represents a different kind of owner of a social media company from his predecessor, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, or his now-rival Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Over the course of his Twitter bid, he has at times styled himself a moderate, but also announced plans to vote for a Republican president in 2024. He has also weighed in on geopolitical conflicts between China and Taiwan and on the Ukraine war.

Inside Twitter, Musk's arrival has been met with resentment and dismay - though Musk's visit on Wednesday left some hopeful. Those hopes were quickly dashed with the firings of top executives, who had commanded the trust of existing staff.

The mood after Wednesday's visit was "overall slightly more positive”, said one employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly about the company, adding, "everyone's ready to close this chapter and get to what comes next”.

I see three possibilities for how Musk handles Twitter moving forwards:
- His mismanagement destroys Twitter. Giving room for something to replace it
- He tries to run it as a profitable company. Then finds out that it's already moderated as little as possible without lots of companies deciding that Twitter is too toxic to advertise on.
- He, or his backers, are willing to keep shovelling money into it. So he can go forwards with his plans of less moderation.

[Gandalf]

It will be interesting to see if there's any sort of exodus of users now. I'm not sure where they would all go though.

[bilateralrope]

That's the problem. There is nowhere to go to that will people anywhere near the reach they get by posting on Twitter. So, if there is an exodus, I'd expect most of the people leaving to trickle back. Nobody is going to stick with whatever alternative they find unless they are blocked from returning to Twitter.

Also, Musk overpaying for Twitter is not the stupidest purchase of a social media platform this month.

[Zwinmar]

How does this not run up against anti trust laws?

[Khaat]

Seems the SEC doesn't actually get much traction in Musk-world.

I had read that Twitter is now on the hook for a billion US in debt per year for this deal, and last earning showed $220-230K net per year before the deal. Seems kind of deep-thinking to grift the right voters more, and aren't they already tapped-out by DJT?

[Ralin]

How does this not run up against anti trust laws?

Based on my very limited understanding, because Twitter didn't go out of their way to make all those other platforms suck ass, anymore than Google made all the search engines it out-competed back in the day so bad. Having a monopoly isn't necessarily illegal, because otherwise it would be illegal to be way better than all of your competitors to the point where all of the customers choose you. Those laws are intended to stop already wealthy and entrenched rich people/companies from using their position to unfairly strangle competition in the cradle.

Also Musk is a billionaire so there are a bunch of laws that don't really apply to him.

[Dominus Atheos]

The good news is that there is probably quite a few lulz to be had soon by everyone who thinks Elon Musk is a douchebag wether from content moderation:

Welcome to hell, Elon

You fucked up real good, kiddo.

Twitter is a disaster clown car company that is successful despite itself, and there is no possible way to grow users and revenue without making a series of enormous compromises that will ultimately destroy your reputation and possibly cause grievous damage to your other companies.

I say this with utter confidence because the problems with Twitter are not engineering problems. They are political problems. Twitter, the company, makes very little interesting technology; the tech stack is not the valuable asset. The asset is the user base: hopelessly addicted politicians, reporters, celebrities, and other people who should know better but keep posting anyway. You! You, Elon Musk, are addicted to Twitter. You’re the asset. You just bought yourself for $44 billion dollars.

The problem when the asset is people is that people are intensely complicated, and trying to regulate how people behave is historically a miserable experience, especially when that authority is vested in a single powerful individual.

What I mean is that you are now the King of Twitter, and people think that you, personally, are responsible for everything that happens on Twitter now. It also turns out that absolute monarchs usually get murdered when shit goes sideways.

Here are some examples: you can write as many polite letters to advertisers as you want, but you cannot reasonably expect to collect any meaningful advertising revenue if you do not promise those advertisers “brand safety.” That means you have to ban racism, sexism, transphobia, and all kinds of other speech that is totally legal in the United States but reveals people to be total assholes. So you can make all the promises about “free speech” you want, but the dull reality is that you still have to ban a bunch of legal speech if you want to make money. And when you start doing that, your creepy new right-wing fanboys are going to viciously turn on you, just like they turn on every other social network that realizes the same essential truth.

Actually, there’s a step before trying to get the ad money: it turns out that most people do not want to participate in horrible unmoderated internet spaces full of shitty racists and not-all-men fedora bullies. (This is why Twitter is so small compared to its peers!) What most people want from social media is to have nice experiences and to feel validated all the time. They want to live at Disney World. So if you want more people to join Twitter and actually post tweets, you have to make the experience much, much more pleasant. Which means: moderating more aggressively! Again, every “alternative” social network has learned this lesson the hard way. Like, over and over and over again.

Also, everyone crying about “free speech” conveniently ignores that the biggest threat to free speech in America is the fucking government, which seems completely bored of the First Amendment. They’re out here banning books, Elon! President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have identical policy positions on Section 230: they both want to repeal it. Do you know why? Because the First Amendment prohibits them from making explicit speech regulations, so they keep threatening to repeal the law that allows social networks to even exist in order to exert indirect pressure on content policy. It’s not subtle!

State governments are even less subtle: both Texas and Florida have passed speech regulations that overtly tell social media companies how to moderate, in open hostility to the First Amendment. Figuring out how to comply with these laws is not an engineering problem (not least because compliance might be impossible). It is a legal problem because these laws are blatantly unconstitutional, and the only appropriate response to them is to tell the government to shut up and go away. (A big problem here is that the courts are pretty stupid about the internet!) A challenge to these laws, partially funded by Twitter, is headed to the Supreme Court, which is the polar opposite of a predictable system: it is a group of uncool weirdos with lifetime appointments that can radically reshape American life however it wants.

You can’t deploy AI at this problem: you have to go out and defend the actual First Amendment against the bad laws in Texas and Florida, whose taxes you like and whose governors you seem pretty fond of. Are you ready for what that looks like? Are you ready to sit before Congress and politely decline to engage in their content capture sessions for hours on end? Are you ready to do any of this without the incredibly respected policy experts whose leader you first harassed and then fired? This is what you signed up for. It’s way more boring than rockets, cars, and rockets with cars on them.

And it gets worse the second you leave the United States! Germany is a huge market for Tesla. Are you going to flout Germany’s speech laws? I would bet not. The Indian government basically demands social media companies provide potential hostages in order to operate in that country; you can’t engineer your way out of that shit. Are you ready to experience the pressure Twitter faces in the Middle East to block and restrict accounts? Are you ready for the fact that the Iranian government will fucking murder people over their social media posts? (Are you ready for how Twitter is being used by Iranians protesting that government right now?) Are you excited for the Chinese government to find ways to threaten Tesla’s huge business in that country over content that appears on Twitter? Because it’s going to happen.

The essential truth of every social network is that the product is content moderation, and everyone hates the people who decide how content moderation works. Content moderation is what Twitter makes — it is the thing that defines the user experience. It’s what YouTube makes, it’s what Instagram makes, it’s what TikTok makes. They all try to incentivize good stuff, disincentivize bad stuff, and delete the really bad stuff. Do you know why YouTube videos are all eight to 10 minutes long? Because that’s how long a video has to be to qualify for a second ad slot in the middle. That’s content moderation, baby — YouTube wants a certain kind of video, and it created incentives to get it. That’s the business you’re in now. The longer you fight it or pretend that you can sell something else, the more Twitter will drag you into the deepest possible muck of defending indefensible speech. And if you turn on a dime and accept that growth requires aggressive content moderation and pushing back against government speech regulations around the country and world, well, we’ll see how your fans react to that.

Anyhow, welcome to hell. This was your idea.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/234 ... moderation

Or advertising:

By Buying Twitter, Elon Musk Has Created His Own Hilarious Nightmare
Musk will likely ruin Twitter for one specific user: himself.

ELON MUSK (and his consortium of much smaller investors) now owns Twitter. We need to take seriously the possibility that this will end up being one of the funniest things that’s ever happened.
That’s because as of this moment, it looks like Musk dug a big hole in the forest, carefully filled it with punji sticks and crocodiles, and then jumped in.

This was made immediately clear by Musk’s “Dear Twitter Advertisers” tweet as the deal closed:


The statement starts off, promisingly, with a blatant lie: “The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important for the future of civilization to have a common digital town square.” Musk apparently believes that no one will remember that until three weeks ago, he was desperately trying not to buy Twitter. The only reason he did is because he was about to lose Twitter’s lawsuit to force him to buy it. This may be the greatest “you can’t fire me because I quit” moment in history.

The significance of the rest of his statement is more subtle. To understand it, you have to start with the basics.

Twitter currently makes 90 percent of its revenue from advertising. (The rest is largely from data licensing.) This means that you, the Twitter user, are not Twitter’s customers. You are its product. Its customers are corporate advertisers and, as every businessperson knows, the customer is always right. Grocery stores care about the people shopping for Cheetos, not about the feelings of the Cheetos themselves.

Twitter’s content moderation has sometimes been heavy-handed — especially when it froze my account because David Duke got mad at me. But this is not because Twitter is run by a woke mob. It’s because Twitter needs to keep advertisers happy — and their top priority is a certain kind of environment for their ads.

This can take specific forms. Delta probably has it written into its contract that its ads won’t run near any tweets about plane crashes. But more generally, advertisers don’t want anything controversial that gets people out of the buying mood, or worse, mad at the brands themselves. Proctor & Gamble can’t allow its ads for Charmin, targeted at the Upscale Panera Mom micro-demographic, to appear below frothing diatribes about annihilating all Muslims.

Twitter is also, speaking just in financial terms, a crummy business. It’s only been profitable for two years of its existence, 2018 and 2019. In 2020 it lost over $1 billion, rebounding to lose a mere $222 million in 2021.

To make matters worse, Musk’s deal to buy Twitter involved taking out $12.5 billion in loans. This means that Twitter will have to come up with an additional $1 billion a year to service this debt.

This is why Musk hit the ground running with a groveling attempt to propitiate advertisers. He absolutely must keep them happy.
Thus if Twitter simply continues on its current path, it will lose huge amounts of money indefinitely. But if advertisers get nervous about Musk’s management and flee the platform, it could see losses every year in the multiple billions of dollars.

It’s true that Musk has said, “I don’t care about the economics at all.” But even as the richest man on earth, he has to care about them. He has a current estimated net worth of $220 billion, but that’s not $220 billion in cash sitting in a bank vault — it’s mostly tied up in his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.

Thus to cover big Twitter losses, he would have to sell off more of his stock every year. This would be painful in monetary terms but more so in terms of power: Eventually he would get into a situation in which he could lose control of the companies, Tesla in particular. Moreover, Tesla is publicly traded, and while it’s fallen 45 percent since its high a year ago, it remains way overvalued by normal metrics. Right now its price-earnings ratio is 70. The historical average for the S&P 500 is about 15. The price-earnings ratio for both Ford and GM right now is 6.

This is why Musk hit the ground running with a groveling attempt to propitiate advertisers. He absolutely must keep them happy. As he put it, “Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise.”

And that’s where the hilarity begins. Musk has engaged in endless paeans to the glory of free speech and the need to end Twitter’s invidious censorship. This clearly isn’t a subject he’s thought deeply about, since he said back in May that Twitter should delete “tweets that are wrong and bad.” Still, his vague pronouncements have given him a legion of right-wing acolytes who feel they’ve been ill-treated by Twitter.

But they are not Musk’s constituency now. Advertisers are. Even if Musk had some genuine commitment to free speech (which he absolutely does not), it would be essentially impossible for him not to continue significant content moderation.

That’s why, after a brief nod to his wish for Twitter to be a place “where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner,” he quickly pivoted to telling advertisers that “Twitter obviously cannot be a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences! In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all.”

This could have been the mission statement of pre-Musk Twitter. But now there’s one big difference: When the content moderation of Twitter remains largely the same, the sense of betrayal among Musk’s super-fans will explode with the force of a supernova. And they will scream at Musk about it nonstop — on Twitter.

Another mogul might have the fortitude to ignore this. But Musk does not, judging by past performance. You can also judge this by current performance: On his first full day on the job, Musk is personally “digging in” to the complaints of Catturd ™.

Catturd ™

Oct 27, 2022
@catturd2

Report … day one of @elonmusk owning Twitter. I’ll be doing this every day to see if anything changes.

As of now, I’m still Shadowbanned, ghostbanned, searchbanned, and Twitter removed 1200 followers today - as usual.

Nothing has changed - I’ll report again tomorrow.

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

I will be digging in more today

And while Musk has announced a new “content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints,” he will feel constantly compelled to either explain why he’s standing by his underlings’ moderation decisions, or reverse them. Then he will inevitably be drawn into personally making more and more content calls, perhaps giving the thumbs up or thumbs down to individual tweets.

It will be hell on earth for him. No matter what decisions he makes, he will infuriate large swaths of Twitter. The left will see its suspicions about him confirmed. The right will see him as a horrendous sellout, just another lying Big Tech swine. Joe Rogan will shake his head sadly about what happened to Elon. Eventually what used to give Musk the greatest pleasure, opening up Twitter on his phone, will be a source of excruciating pain.

And that’s just the beginning. Musk has important business interests around the world, and the potential riptides are endless. What happens when Kim Kardashian starts tweeting about how Taiwan is an independent country? Will the government of China quietly suggest to Musk that he do something about this, or will they make things hard for Tesla’s Shanghai plant and block the import of Teslas? What do other Tesla shareholders do if he defies China, and they find out his little bird app adventure is losing them money? What happens when a SpaceX rocket explodes, but Musk has been too busy adjudicating which Nazi furries are going to be suspended for a month?

This future is obviously not foreordained. Possibly Musk will do what no human has ever been able to do before and invent 1) content moderation that everyone likes at an enormous scale, and 2) a way to make huge amounts of money off Twitter. Maybe Tesla will become so profitable that he can use it to subsidize Twitter until 2090. But the most likely outcome is that he’s just asked the monkey’s paw to grant him his greatest wish. Now look as the paw crooks its gnarled finger, and Musk’s love for Twitter ends up obliterating the Twitter experience for one specific user: Elon Musk.

https://theintercept.com/2022/10/28/elon-musk-twitter/

[Aether]

I don't have a Twitter account, so I have no horse in this race. But I do look forward to the collapse of Twitter (and Meta). The phrase "and nothing of value was lost" is often over used, but it is perfect in this scenario.

[bilateralrope]

Musk to cut half of Twitter jobs and end remote work for the rest, report says

Musk told staff he won't cut 75% of jobs—it will reportedly be 50% instead.
JON BRODKIN - 11/4/2022, 3:58 AM

Elon Musk plans to eliminate half the jobs at Twitter and require remote employees to report to an office, Bloomberg reported.

"Elon Musk plans to eliminate about 3,700 jobs at Twitter, or half of the social media company's workforce," and "intends to reverse the company's existing work-from-anywhere policy, asking remaining employees to report to offices—though some exceptions could be made," the report said. Bloomberg cited people with knowledge of the matter. Musk reportedly aims to inform affected staffers of the layoffs on Friday.

After an earlier report that Musk told investors he plans to cut 75 percent of Twitter's workforce, Musk reportedly told staff that he wouldn't eliminate 75 percent of the jobs. But it was still clear there would be a significant amount of layoffs.

Twitter reportedly has about 1,500 employees who work remotely full-time. Musk's reported work-from-home directive would be similar to orders he issued at Tesla and SpaceX earlier this year. Musk told employees at his electric car and space companies that they must be in the office at least 40 hours per week or leave the company.

Workers may have to relocate quickly

In June, Musk held a virtual town hall with Twitter staff where he reportedly said he would let "exceptional" employees work at home if he completed his then-pending acquisition of the social network. "If someone can only work remotely, and they're exceptional, it wouldn't make sense to fire them," he said. Musk reportedly pointed out at the meeting that the work at Twitter is different from the work at Tesla, saying, "Tesla makes cars, and you can't make cars remotely."

Axios also reported the work-from-home news, writing that Twitter "plans to require its remaining staffers to return to physical offices full time... sources inside the company say that many employees can't or won't be willing to relocate, resulting in additional attrition beyond the layoffs." Employees who were hired to work remotely during the pandemic would have to decide quickly whether to stay on and could be given "as little as 60 days" to relocate to an area close to a Twitter office, the Axios report said.

Before Musk, Twitter leadership encouraged employees to work wherever they felt comfortable doing so. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told employees in March that while all company offices were reopening, "the decisions about where you work, whether you feel safe traveling for business, and what events you attend, should be yours. As we open back up, our approach remains the same. Wherever you feel most productive and creative is where you will work, and that includes working from home full-time forever."

According to the Bloomberg report, senior personnel on Twitter product teams "were asked to target a 50 percent reduction in headcount... Layoff lists were drawn up and ranked based on individuals' contributions to Twitter's code during their time at the company." Musk reportedly brought in "engineers and director-level staff from Tesla" to help assess the layoff lists.

Impending layoffs a hot topic inside Twitter

Musk immediately fired Agrawal and several other high-ranking executives after he completed the purchase of Twitter a week ago. After that, "a few employees with director and vice president jobs were cut," Bloomberg wrote. Moreover, "after the [plans for] layoffs were sorted, Twitter Chief Accounting Officer Robert Kaiden left the company, becoming one of the last pre-Musk C-suite executives to depart," the article said.

A Washington Post article said Twitter staff became aware of the planned 50 percent reduction on Wednesday despite not getting any official word from leadership:

By day's end, word had spread across the company that layoffs—half the staff—would probably come Friday, and that Musk would require Twitter's remaining employees to return to the office full-time. But that word didn't come from Musk, or anyone on his leadership team. It came via Blind, the anonymous workplace gossip site that some Twitter employees say has become their best, and often only, source of information about what's going on inside the company in the chaotic, surreal week since Musk acquired it for $44 billion.

"Since Musk closed the deal on Oct. 27, employees say, they have not received a single official communication from anyone in a leadership position at the company," The Washington Post article also said. "They have not been told that Musk completed the purchase, that their CEO and top executives were summarily fired, or that Musk dissolved the board and installed himself as chief executive."

Looks like he's going to burn Twitter to the ground, taking his reputation as a competent businessman along with it.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Musk to cut half of Twitter jobs and end remote work for the rest, report says

Musk told staff he won't cut 75% of jobs—it will reportedly be 50% instead.
JON BRODKIN - 11/4/2022, 3:58 AM

Elon Musk plans to eliminate half the jobs at Twitter and require remote employees to report to an office, Bloomberg reported.

"Elon Musk plans to eliminate about 3,700 jobs at Twitter, or half of the social media company's workforce," and "intends to reverse the company's existing work-from-anywhere policy, asking remaining employees to report to offices—though some exceptions could be made," the report said. Bloomberg cited people with knowledge of the matter. Musk reportedly aims to inform affected staffers of the layoffs on Friday.

After an earlier report that Musk told investors he plans to cut 75 percent of Twitter's workforce, Musk reportedly told staff that he wouldn't eliminate 75 percent of the jobs. But it was still clear there would be a significant amount of layoffs.

Twitter reportedly has about 1,500 employees who work remotely full-time. Musk's reported work-from-home directive would be similar to orders he issued at Tesla and SpaceX earlier this year. Musk told employees at his electric car and space companies that they must be in the office at least 40 hours per week or leave the company.

Workers may have to relocate quickly

In June, Musk held a virtual town hall with Twitter staff where he reportedly said he would let "exceptional" employees work at home if he completed his then-pending acquisition of the social network. "If someone can only work remotely, and they're exceptional, it wouldn't make sense to fire them," he said. Musk reportedly pointed out at the meeting that the work at Twitter is different from the work at Tesla, saying, "Tesla makes cars, and you can't make cars remotely."

Axios also reported the work-from-home news, writing that Twitter "plans to require its remaining staffers to return to physical offices full time... sources inside the company say that many employees can't or won't be willing to relocate, resulting in additional attrition beyond the layoffs." Employees who were hired to work remotely during the pandemic would have to decide quickly whether to stay on and could be given "as little as 60 days" to relocate to an area close to a Twitter office, the Axios report said.

Before Musk, Twitter leadership encouraged employees to work wherever they felt comfortable doing so. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told employees in March that while all company offices were reopening, "the decisions about where you work, whether you feel safe traveling for business, and what events you attend, should be yours. As we open back up, our approach remains the same. Wherever you feel most productive and creative is where you will work, and that includes working from home full-time forever."

According to the Bloomberg report, senior personnel on Twitter product teams "were asked to target a 50 percent reduction in headcount... Layoff lists were drawn up and ranked based on individuals' contributions to Twitter's code during their time at the company." Musk reportedly brought in "engineers and director-level staff from Tesla" to help assess the layoff lists.

Impending layoffs a hot topic inside Twitter

Musk immediately fired Agrawal and several other high-ranking executives after he completed the purchase of Twitter a week ago. After that, "a few employees with director and vice president jobs were cut," Bloomberg wrote. Moreover, "after the [plans for] layoffs were sorted, Twitter Chief Accounting Officer Robert Kaiden left the company, becoming one of the last pre-Musk C-suite executives to depart," the article said.

A Washington Post article said Twitter staff became aware of the planned 50 percent reduction on Wednesday despite not getting any official word from leadership:

By day's end, word had spread across the company that layoffs—half the staff—would probably come Friday, and that Musk would require Twitter's remaining employees to return to the office full-time. But that word didn't come from Musk, or anyone on his leadership team. It came via Blind, the anonymous workplace gossip site that some Twitter employees say has become their best, and often only, source of information about what's going on inside the company in the chaotic, surreal week since Musk acquired it for $44 billion.

"Since Musk closed the deal on Oct. 27, employees say, they have not received a single official communication from anyone in a leadership position at the company," The Washington Post article also said. "They have not been told that Musk completed the purchase, that their CEO and top executives were summarily fired, or that Musk dissolved the board and installed himself as chief executive."

Looks like he's going to burn Twitter to the ground, taking his reputation as a competent businessman along with it.

He's also picking a fight with AOC while he's at it

[Solauren]

Of course, here's the question - Was burning Twitter to the ground his intention all along?

[Gandalf]

Of course, here's the question - Was burning Twitter to the ground his intention all along?

Maybe, but he's paying a lot for the privilege.

[Lost Soal]

Of course, here's the question - Was burning Twitter to the ground his intention all along?

Maybe, but he's paying a lot for the privilege.

Nah. He thought he could just fuck about with them then walk away. I don't think it ever crossed his mind that twitter would sue to enforce it and a judge would side with them.
Now if things go as expected most of his Tesla stock is going to be owned by the banks.

[bilateralrope]

Of course, here's the question - Was burning Twitter to the ground his intention all along?

I see nothing to suggest he was thinking that far ahead.

Remember that under his leadership Tesla has done things like allowing people to play games/watch movies on the cars center console while the car was in motion, claiming it wouldn't be a distraction for the driver because it was only for the passenger to use. Only backing down when the NHTSA started an investigation. Musk also called everyone back into the office despite WFH being favoured by workers, producing better productivity in most cases and the offices didn't have enough chairs, desk spaces or parking for it.

To me, it looks like he agreed to it on a whim, then tried back out of it via any method he could think of. Backing down only at the last minute. Especially with the '420' in the price per share he offered.

If his plan was to destroy Twitter all along, why delay the purchase until the last minute in the court case ?

Plus it would require him to not think about and/or not care about what would happen after he destroys Twitter. Someone would have their platform replace it, but Musk's reputation will be stained by the high profile $44 billion failure.

[Solauren]

The only (close to) logical reason i could think of for Musk wanting to burn Twitter to the ground, is to rebuild it.

Right now, Twitter is massive, and is hard to moderate with a small staff.

If damages it enough, he could split it into 'subsidiaries'. i.e Twitter-Democracts, Twitter-Republicans, Twitter-Celebrities, etc.

Those would be much easier to moderate, especially if you hand it off to a third party.

i.e Twitter-Celebrities - you have to be a celebrity to post, and it's not moderated at all.
i.e Twitter-Republicans-USA - have to be a registered Republican to post, and he let's the Republican party of the United States moderate it.
i.e Twitter-Democracts-USA - he let's the Democractic party of the United States moderate it.
etc.

Essentially turning Twitter into a collection of self-regulated groups, similar to Facebook.

I can imagine there would be a lot of resistance to that, unless he can make it the only tenable solution.

[Ralin]

That wouldn't do anything useful because part of the appeal of Twitter that drives engagement for a number of its users is being able to use it as a platform to troll and harass their political opponents, especially minorities.

[Solauren]

That wouldn't do anything useful because part of the appeal of Twitter that drives engagement for a number of its users is being able to use it as a platform to troll and harass their political opponents, especially minorities.

Never said it would. I said that's the only (close to) logical explanation I could think of for Musk buying Twitter to burn it down.

Seriously, who knows how that man's mind works?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The staff got even smaller when Elon fired half of them.

Right on cue, there was this announcement by Elon:

Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.

Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.

[bilateralrope]

Twitter shuts offices for day as it cuts 50% of workforce; staff already suing

Twitter staff plans to fight layoffs in a San Francisco court.
ASHLEY BELANGER - 11/5/2022, 3:47 AM

A day after it was reported that Twitter would lay off 50 percent of staff, Twitter has temporarily shut down its offices to begin layoffs. Some staff told Reuters that hundreds of employees who got this news yesterday immediately logged into Slack to say goodbyes before access was removed. Other workers told Reuters that the content moderation team is expected to be hit hard by layoffs.

One Twitter user whose bio says he formerly served as a Twitter senior community manager tweeted to mark the moment he lost company Slack access. That Twitter staffer assumed that losing Slack access confirmed he was no longer employed but won’t know for sure until today, when employees will find out if they’re fired when they receive an email to their personal inbox. Every employee expected to stick around Twitter will receive an email to their work inbox.

Those email announcements are expected to arrive by noon ET on Friday, according to a Twitter internal email reviewed by Reuters, which informed Twitter staff, "In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday."

Around 3,700 employees are expected to be laid off. This sudden confirmation, however, will at least end the uncertainty for Twitter staff, who were left guessing up until yesterday about whether new Twitter-owner Elon Musk would actually follow through with rumored mass layoffs.

Before layoffs have even been confirmed, though, some staff members are already fighting back. In his rush to cut staff, Musk and his legal team seemingly overlooked or disregarded a federal and California law—the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act—which requires 60 days’ notice to staff in advance of mass layoffs.

Already, Twitter staff is suing Twitter, with five employees filing a class-action lawsuit in a San Francisco federal court on behalf of all Twitter staff. The workers will be represented by attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, who helped Tesla workers sue after 10 percent of staff was laid off last June. That litigation ended in a win for Tesla that forced Tesla workers out of court and into closed-door arbitration. To prevent another Musk company from doing the same to Twitter staff, Liss-Riordan told Bloomberg that employees have asked the court to stop Twitter from forcing them to sign documents that would waive their rights to take part in the lawsuit.

“We filed this lawsuit tonight in an attempt the make sure that employees are aware that they should not sign away their rights and that they have an avenue for pursuing their rights,” Liss-Riordan told Bloomberg.

Liss-Riordan and Twitter did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

The class-action lawsuit is asking Twitter to either comply with the WARN Act or provide severance payments, including lost wages, which the employees suing said have not been provided thus far.

Twitter staff is gathering behind the hashtag #OneTeam to provide updates and support through the layoffs. One Twitter user whose bio says he is a “recovering” global head of social and editorial for Twitter posted what he said would be the final tweet sent from his team from the official Twitter account. It’s a screencap that just says, “bye literally everyone.”

Does rushing into illegal mass layoffs like this sound like the move of someone with a plan ?

[bilateralrope]

He's also gutting Twitter's infrastructure. Oh and content moderation has changed despite what Musk claims

Musk to gut Twitter infrastructure, cut costs by $1B annually

Reducing servers and cloud services risks outages during peak traffic times.
ASHLEY BELANGER - 11/5/2022, 4:56 AM

With Twitter losing $3 million per day, Elon Musk has ordered whatever Twitter staff he has left to start making up the difference by cutting Twitter infrastructure costs by $1.5 to $3 million per day. Musk is hoping to save $1 billion in annual costs in what Reuters reported has been dubbed Twitter’s “Deep Cuts Plan,” part of Musk’s ongoing scramble to turn Twitter profits around, seemingly even if it risks platform outages during high-traffic times.

Twitter is not commenting publicly yet on the Deep Cuts Plan, but Musk tweeted Friday morning to express how “extremely messed up” he thinks Twitter’s ad revenue loss is. Many major brands, including Cheerios and Audi, have paused advertising on Twitter, Reuters reported. Both brands told Reuters they would continue to evaluate the situation at Twitter before resuming.

“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation, and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” Musk tweeted. “Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”

Ad buyers are growing hesitant about advertising on Twitter. Musk has repeatedly said that he has not yet updated Twitter’s content moderation policy, but Twitter's content moderation has already changed. Since Musk took over, Twitter has restricted staff from policing content violations, and researchers have documented a surge in hate content on the platform. Anecdotally, Redditors have also begun documenting an apparent surge in adult content on the platform.

Twitter's head of safety and integrity, Yoel Roth, tweeted, "We're still enforcing our rules at scale," and he shared a thread detailing Twitter's efforts to combat the surge in hate content. But advertisers don't seem as confident in Twitter's stripped-down approach.

Infrastructure cuts could cause outages

Reuters reports that the key goal of Musk’s Deep Cuts Plan is to cut back on costs for servers and cloud services, which could cause Twitter to become unstable during peak traffic times when users rely most on the platform for the most current updates. That includes during elections like the upcoming US midterms, as well as during moments of crisis like mass protests, acts of war, school shootings, or extreme weather events.

It doesn’t seem to matter to Musk much if the platform becomes unstable. According to Twitter staff sources and a Slack message reviewed by Reuters, Musk’s priority is apparently slashing costs as quickly as possible, setting a November 7 deadline for employees to identify cost-saving infrastructure cuts.

While Twitter staff layoffs have begun as another cost-saving measure, employees who are left to continue working with Musk are expected to be in the office every day for long hours until the Deep Cuts Plan’s goals are achieved.

Meanwhile, NBC News reporter Ben Collins has tweeted that those spared this fate through Musk’s sudden layoffs seem to be happier about the position they’re in.

“Talking to a couple of Twitter employees just now who learned they don't work there anymore when their email stopped working,” Collins tweeted. “I have never talked to people more excited to get laid off in my entire life.”

I'll also quote the promoted comment on that article:

Picking a fight with advertisers is not a great strategy to win back their business and convince them that twitter is a friendly place for advertising content.

Claiming someone is trying to “destroy free speech in America” and then asking them to pay you millions of dollars is just obviously not a smart sales tactic. At best it comes off as whiny, at worst it is actively hostile to the customer you are trying to win.

The sales execs who remain at twitter are trying to claim things are normal, telling their customers to ignore the chaos, it is business at usual behind the scenes. Musk even tries (barely) to stick to this PR line, when he states “even though nothing has changed with content moderation,” but of course immediately going on to say “and we did everything we could to appease the activists” - these large corporations spending ad money, who don’t want to be associated with racist or other objectionable content, don’t see themselves as “activists.” If anything they are the establishment.

Stability sells. Business invest in stability. Stable economies attract investment. Stable platforms attract advertising. Twitter is not stable.

Musk’s comments are actively impeding his goal to maintain advertising spend and attract money to the platform.