Elon Musk is reportedly now officially in charge of Twitter, setting the scene for the platform’s looming descent into a microblogged reenactment of Lord of the Flies. And apparently he’s already started cleaning house.
According to CNBC’s David Faber, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal have left the company’s headquarters in San Francisco for the last time, shoved out the door by Musk’s decree. They aren’t the only executives that Musk has apparently fired either, with sources speaking to The New York Times adding head legal and policy executive Vijaya Gadde and general counsel Sean Edgett to the list of those let go.
Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter was expected to result in staff cuts, with the wealthiest individual in the world having previously stated he planned on reducing the company’s workforce by up to 75 percent. This would mean letting go of up to 5,000 employees.
There were some doubts as to whether Musk would actually follow through with his proposed cuts, and a handful of high-powered CEOs is a far cry from thousands of workers. But it wouldn’t be surprising if Musk is just getting started.
Bloomberg also reports that Musk has asked Twitter’s engineers to meet with Tesla engineers according to its sources. The former reportedly showed the latter the company’s code so they could run Musk through it.
Yesterday Musk tweeted a video of himself carrying a sink into Twitter’s headquarters, captioned « Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in! » He also tweeted a message to advertisers, attempting to keep the money rolling in by reassuring them Twitter will remain a safe space for ads, honest. Musk’s laissez-faire view of content moderation has resulted in concerns Twitter may become a platform brands hesitate to associate with — apprehension he likely wants quash before it dries up Twitter’s primary revenue stream.
Acquiring a company and immediately firing the people who’ve been running it seems like a pretty risky idea, particularly on the first day before you even have your feet beneath you. Then again, Musk isn’t exactly known for his thoughtful, considered decision-making. We’ll see how it works out for him.
This is a developing story…
