Twitter CEO Elon Musk recently announced that the social media platform is set to break even next year due to the many changes he has enacted since his takeover.
Musk stated in a Twitter Spaces audio chat that Twitter is expected to be “roughly cash flow break-even” sometime in 2023. This is largely due to new services Twitter provides such as Twitter Blue.
Elon also claimed the company was severely underwater with a “negative cash flow situation of $3 billion per year”. The CEO claimed when he first took over the company, Twitter was overstaffed with thousands of unneeded employees. This overstaffing allegedly caused diminishing marginal benefit to Twitter as it led to exorbitant expenditure in salaries, substantial benefits, and in-office luxuries.
Elon has taken aggressive steps to cut these costs by firing over 50% of the existing staff. He has also gutted the vast amenities in the San Francisco headquarters such as private chefs, fancy espresso machines, and various other luxuries.
Musk has thus created a “hardcore” culture at Twitter, tasked with turning the company profitable. Elon stated in an email to Twitter employees they must accept these hardcore conditions or resign from the company.
Insider reported the full email Elon sent to all remaining employees:
Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.
Twitter will also be much more engineering-driven. Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway. At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so I think this makes sense.
If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below:
[Google form link]
Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance.
Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.
Apparently, Twitter now only has 2,000 employees remaining in the company. This greatly reduced spending, where Twitter was on track to spend $5 billion next year with $12.5 billion in outstanding debt. Musk anticipates revenue to have grown roughly 20% for the full year in 2022. Musk has made it very clear that revenue growth is the number one priority at Twitter.
Elon Musk is also rolling out plenty of new features on the social media platform aimed at bolstering the user experience. Elon stated in a tweet:
Twitter is rolling out View Count, so you can see how many times a tweet has been seen! This is normal for video. Shows how much more alive Twitter is than it may seem, as over 90% of Twitter users read, but don’t tweet, reply or like, as those are public actions.
Twitter is rolling out View Count, so you can see how many times a tweet has been seen! This is normal for video.
Shows how much more alive Twitter is than it may seem, as over 90% of Twitter users read, but don’t tweet, reply or like, as those are public actions.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2022
The aforementioned Twitter Blue is another feature designed to improve revenue at Twitter. Users can now pay an $11 monthly subscription to access the coveted “blue check mark”.
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