Elon Musk blames activists for ‘massive drop’ in revenue as Twitter begins huge job cuts

Employees post their goodbyes as billionaire takes axe to social media giant

Musk has blamed a ‘massive drop in revenue’ for his decision to cut jobs (The Independent)

Elon Musk blamed “activist groups” for a “massive drop” in revenue at Twitter, as his company began drastic job cuts.

The billionaire began firing workers at offices around the world, raising grave concerns about the social media platform as a source of reliable information just days ahead of the US midterm elections.

The speed and size of the cuts also opened Musk and Twitter to legal action. At least one lawsuit has been filed in San Francisco alleging that the company has broken the law by not providing the required notice.

There are suggestions that as many as half of its 7,500-plus staff could be axed in what the company called “an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path”.

Many of those made redundant posted their goodbyes. Shannon Raj Singh, the former human rights lawyer at the company, wrote: “Yesterday was my last day at Twitter: the entire Human Rights team has been cut from the company.”

In his first tweet since the cuts began, Musk said: “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.”

Online safety groups and campaigners have expressed concerns about Musk’s plans to allow more free speech on the site and reverse permanent bans given to controversial figures including former US president Donald Trump.

Musk is thought to want to drastically reduce costs at the company. After completing his £39bn takeover of the platform last week, he tweeted: “We need to pay the bills somehow!”

Alongside the cuts to the workforce, Musk has proposed charging a monthly subscription fee for users to be verified on the platform, in an effort to create more revenue streams for the company and move it away from its reliance on advertising.

An internal email sent to staff about the job cuts on Friday said the action to cut staff was “unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward”.

In Ireland, where the European headquarters of a number of tech firms including Twitter and Facebook are based, premier Micheal Martin criticised the way in which staff were let go, saying that it was “not acceptable” and was “fairly unprecedented”.

“We are concerned, and our concern is there for the employees of Twitter,” Mr Martin told reporters.

“There seems to be a fairly unprecedented approach being adopted here to a global workforce, and that’s manifesting itself in Ireland.

“What I would say is no matter who you are, or what sector you are in, one must always treat people with dignity and respect, and the employees at Twitter deserve to be treated with respect.”

A civic integrity team manager at Twitter who quit in September, Eddie Perez, said he fears the layoffs so close to the midterms could allow disinformation to “spread like wildfire” during the post-election vote-counting period in particular.

“I have a hard time believing that it doesn’t have a material impact on their ability to manage the amount of disinformation out there,” he said, adding that there simply may not be enough employees to beat it back.

Perez, a board member at the non-partisan election integrity nonprofit OSET Institute, said the post-election period is particularly perilous because “some candidates may not concede, and some may allege election irregularities, and that is likely to generate a new cycle of falsehoods”.

Twitter’s employees have been expecting layoffs since Musk took the helm. Already, he has fired top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, on his first day as owner.

Musk also removed the company’s board of directors and installed himself as the sole board member.

As of Friday, Musk and Twitter had given no public notice of the wider layoffs, according to a spokesperson for California’s Employment Development Department. That’s even though the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification statute requires employers with at least 100 workers to disclose layoffs involving 500 or more employees, regardless of whether a company is publicly traded or privately held.

In Britain, Twitter is required to give employees notice of redundancy, said Emma Bartlett, a partner specialising in employment and partnership law at CM Murray LLP.

Twitter advertisers have steadily declined since Musk agreed to buy Twitter in April, according to MediaRadar, which tracks ad buys. Between January and April, the average number of advertisers on Twitter was 3,350. From May through to September, the number dropped to 3,100. Prior to July, more than 1,000 new advertisers were spending on Twitter every month. In July and August, that number dropped to roughly 200.

Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg said there is “little Musk can say to appease advertisers when he’s keeping the company in a constant state of uncertainty and turmoil, and appears indifferent to Twitter employees and the law”.

“Musk needs advertisers more than they need him,” she said. “Pulling ads from Twitter is a quick and painless decision for most brands.”