According to a Bloomberg report, as part of his pitch to raise funds to take over Twitter, Elon Musk appears to have “floated” the idea of cutting jobs at Twitter to improve the bottom line. “While nothing is set in stone — and Musk himself did not have access to Twitter’s non-public finances at the time — he has specifically mentioned job cuts in discussions with banks,” the report reads.
There’s still a lot of uncertainty about what Twitter will look like under Musk’s ownership, assuming the $44 billion deal announced Monday goes through as expected. The best clue yet as to what he intends to do with the platform comes from his own words in a press release:
Freedom of expression is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital marketplace where important issues for the future of mankind are debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by improving the product with new features, open source the algorithms to increase trust, defeat the spam bots and authenticate everyone. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the user community to unlock it.
However, a possible job cut was not publicly discussed. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Given Musk’s many tweets about opening up free speech on the platform — including ones criticizing previous Twitter decisions that drew negative attention to employees — one area where Musk could make cuts is in the company’s policy department. Musk dissolved Tesla’s public relations department, so perhaps Twitter’s communications groups could also come under scrutiny.
For bankers, Musk may have discussed ways to improve the bottom line, but he’s publicly indicated he’s not interested in Twitter for the money. “This is not a way to make money,” Musk said at TED 2022 on April 14. “My strong intuitive feeling is that having a public platform that is maximally familiar and inclusive is extremely important for the future of civilization. The economy doesn’t interest me at all.”