At Twitter, the problems continue to pile up since the acquisition of Musk

Apps that use Twitter being blocked out of the blue. Dismissed employees who have been waiting for their severance pay for months. Ad revenues collapsing. Barely three months after Elon Musk took over leadership of Twitter, the number of problems at the company is increasing.

Musk bought Twitter in October last year for $ 44 billion (at the time 44 billion euros) after a months-long takeover battle. Shortly after the takeover, Musk implemented a round of layoffs (half of the 7,500 employees lost their jobs) and let former president Donald Trump, among others, back on the platform.

Soon after Musk took office, Twitter’s advertising revenue (more than $ 5 billion in revenue last year, more than 200 million users) fell sharply. Customers of ad buyer GroupM cut their ads on Twitter by nearly half, a tech website survey found The Information.

Hate messages

Major brands such as General Motors, Pfizer and Aldi, among others, decided to withdraw from Twitter. That means the company is currently missing out on millions of dollars a month in revenue. Last year, Twitter made about $4.5 billion from advertising — the company’s main source of income.

Read also:Arguments, lawsuits and a sink: how Musk still bought Twitter

The advertisers expressed concern about the increasing amount of hate messages on Twitter. It is a direct result of the round of layoffs, which has hit the moderation department hard, among others. At the same time, Twitter’s sales department, which interacts with advertisers, has been decimated.

In an attempt to get more users to its own Twitter app, Musk suddenly closed access to Tweetbot and Twitterrific on Thursday, alternative apps for sending and viewing tweets. The decision should help boost ad revenue. Developers of Tweetbot and Twitterrific said they reached out to Twitter for clarification, but received no response.

Cost savings

Meanwhile, to make Twitter profitable, Musk is making major cost cuts across the company. Of the 7,500 employees Twitter had before Musk’s arrival, about 2,000 remain. Especially the software developers were allowed to stay.

One of the problems: the departed employees are still waiting for severance payments, which were promised by Musk, but never paid. Several American employees – who are entitled to three monthly salaries in severance pay – have taken the company to court for that reason.

Musk instructed his employees according to The New York Times to stop paying the rents for offices, a means of exerting pressure to be able to renegotiate the rent. This includes Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, where employees, including Musk himself, are currently expected to be present daily again after years of a home-working policy.

One of the few new powers that Musk still wants to hire: his successor. “I’m quitting as CEO as soon as I find someone crazy enough to want this job,” Musk tweeted last month. “After that, I will only manage the software and server teams.”