Elon Musk said he would limit his responsibilities to running Twitter software and server teams. (File)
San Francisco:
Elon Musk said Wednesday that drastic cost cuts at Twitter had mended the company’s ailing finances as he set out to find a new CEO for his ailing social media platform.
The moody billionaire said on a live chat forum that without the changes, including laying off over half of Twitter’s employees, the company would have wasted $3 billion a year.
“Not good as Twitter has $1 billion in cash. So I’ve spent the last five weeks cutting costs like crazy,” he told Twitter Spaces, a feature of the platform he bought for $44 billion.
“If … you look at it from my point of view … you’re basically in a plane that’s heading for the ground at high speed, the engines are burning and the controls aren’t working,” he said.
Just weeks after his acquisition of Twitter, Mr Musk laid off about half of his 7,500 employees, sparking concerns that the company did not have enough staff to handle content moderation and spooking governments and advertisers.
Elon Musk said his strategy was paying off and that by massively cutting costs and building subscriber revenue, “I now think Twitter is actually going to be fine next year” and break even.
He added that he understands advertisers are skeptical about spending on his platform but attribute their caution to the poor economic outlook rather than concerns about content moderation.
He said the new $8 subscription service, called Twitter Blue, would help make up the difference.
“Because how else are we going to pay the damn server bill,” Musk said, adding that Twitter’s hardware costs around $1.5 billion annually.
Mr Musk made defending his policy after tweeting that he was looking for a new CEO “stupid” enough to replace him.
He said he would then limit his responsibilities to running the software and server teams at Twitter.
This was followed by a Twitter poll in which Elon Musk asked users if he should stay as the company’s CEO – with 57 percent of votes saying he should step down.
Mr Musk has used the Twitter polls to make other decisions on the platform, including restoring former US President Donald Trump’s account.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and was published by a syndicated feed.)
Featured Video of the Day
Race to the LAC: Can India keep up with China’s border development?