For months, Musk’s $44-billion acquisition of Twitter has roiled the company’s 7,500 employees as the billionaire made pronouncements about how he would change the service and then tried to back out of the deal. Now, with his takeover back on track and set to close no later than next Friday, disquiet inside the company has intensified.
Employees’ fears were stoked Thursday when
The Washington Post reported that
Musk planned to cut Twitter’s staff by as much as 75% in the coming months.
Workers have also been worrying over how their compensation might change once Musk transforms the company from a publicly traded firm into a private one, said five employees who were not authorised to speak publicly.
Late Thursday, Twitter tried to calm some of the concerns. In a memo to employees, Sean Edgett, the general counsel, said there were no plans for layoffs.
“We do not have any confirmation of the buyer’s plans following close and recommend not following rumors or leaked documents but rather wait for facts from us and the buyer directly,” he wrote. The memo was reported earlier by
Bloomberg.
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Whatever Twitter does to reassure its employees may not be enough. Once Musk completes the deal for the company, he can do almost anything he likes with the firm.
Musk has said that he wants more free speech on the platform and that he will allow former President Donald Trump, who was barred from the service, to return. Musk has also said he plans to add more subscription services to Twitter and cut some jobs while attracting more users to the service.
As of Friday, the deal appeared to be hurtling toward the finish line. The investment banks that have committed $12.5 billion to finance Musk’s takeover of Twitter continue to work on finalising those commitments ahead of the October 28 deadline, said a person with knowledge of the situation.
Once the deal is closed, Musk is expected to run Twitter on a lean budget. The billionaire is taking out loans to finance the acquisition, and investors who are contributing more than $7 billion to the purchase will also expect returns.
