Elon
Musk responds to NYT report about him firing Twitter
employees to save money: 'This is false' - October
31, 2022 Fox
Business)
Musk
completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on
Thursday.
Elon
Musk, Twitter's new owner and the CEO of Tesla, denied
a report by the New York Times that alleged he will
fire Twitter employees just before they are set to
receive their November 1 compensation in the form
of stock grants.
"This
is false," Musk responded to a tweet by ProPublica's
d puty managing editor, Eric Umansky, that highlighted
the New York Times report.
The
Times report claimed that employees are being cut
before the 1st as a cost-cutting measure. "The
layoffs at Twitter would take place before a Nov.
1 date when employees were scheduled to receive stock
grants as part of their compensation. Such grants
typically represent a significant portion of employees’
pay," The Times reported.
"By
laying off workers before that date, Mr. Musk may
avoid paying the grants, though he is supposed to
pay the employees cash in place of their stock under
the terms of the merger agreement," the piece
continued.
The
report cited Ross Gerber, an investor who helped Musk
finance the takeover, to report that Musk plans to
cut around 50 percent of Twitter's 7,500 people workforce.
Geber's comments about the expected cuts did not detail
the timing of the layoffs.
Musk
has promised to make vast changes to Twitter. Upon
taking control of the company, he immediately fired
the company's top executives, including CEO Parag
Agrawal, who argued the company should deemphasize
the importance of free speech, and Twitter's top lawyer
Vijaya Gadde, who was behind the decisions to ban
then-President Trump from the platform and to censor
the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story in the
weeks before the 2020 presidential election.
Musk
has said ensuring free speech and turning the company
profitable by better monetizing ads on the platform
are his main goals. Although Twitter has been one
of the most popular social media platforms in the
world for over a decade, the company has struggled
financially for years. It only turned profits in 2018
and 2019, and posted net losses every other year since
2012.
However,
Musk's vision for a Twitter that reaffirms its commitment
to free speech and open inquiry is not unanimously
supported. Despite many Americans' expressing optimism
that Musk's reign will usher in a new era of open
debate, the Wall Street Journal reported that some
advertisers have threatened to leave the platform
if Trump is reinstated.
Musk
said Friday he will not reinstate banned accounts
until the convening of a "content moderation
panel." Last week, he also published a letter
to Twitter's advertisers to reassure them that the
platform would adhere "to the laws of the land"
and "be welcoming to all".
"Bloomberg Risk Takers" profiles Elon Musk,
the entrepreneur who helped create PayPal, built America's
first viable fully electric car company, started the
nation's biggest solar energy supplier, and may make
commercial space travel a reality in our lifetime.
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