The Twitter revolution often heralded by Elon Musk has officially begun. Dissolve the board of directors of the company and proclaim himself sole director, as the Wall Street Journal revealed, it was just the latest move made by Tesla’s CEO since he concluded the purchase of the social network for about $ 44 billion last week. It seems that Musk is already working on the first round of staff cuts, which should affect 25% of current hires. Not only that: it is speeding up the procedures to increase the price of the Twitter Blue paid service (monthly subscription that offers the most active users exclusive access to premium functions) and make the famous “blue check” a fundamental prerequisite.
The layoffs
The Washington Post announced that the billionaire and his allies, first and foremost the star attorney – including Musk – Alex Spiro who will deal with the affair, worked all weekend to process the first wave of layoffs, which will affect all departments. but in particular sales (where many earn more than $ 300,000, according to the American newspaper) and engineering. This is a quarter of the employees who work for the microblogging platform, who have not yet been officially notified by the company of the acquisition. Spiro is taking an active role in managing several teams of Twitter, including the legal, government relations, policy and marketing team. At the end of 2021, Twitter reported around 7,000 employees. Elon Musk, the day before the company’s acquisition, fired chief executive Parag Agrawal, finance chief Ned Segal, and firm’s head of legal affairs and policy Vijaya Gadde.
The “new” Twitter Blue
According to rumors also published by the Financial Times, Elon Musk intends to bring the cost of the subscription from the current $ 4.99 per month to $ 19.99. Whoever pays will have a verified account, as hundreds of thousands of brand users and public figures already have. The Tesla boss also asked for a 24-hour commitment from his team to set the “new” Twitter in motion: the goal is to respect the deadline of November 7 to launch the function, under penalty of dismissal. With this move, Musk’s will to give an answer to advertisers who fear a collapse of the platform under the absolutist of free speech, as he himself defined it. The South African entrepreneur, in this reorganization, has already received his first warning: the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a group created by the World Federation of Advertisers (the American association for advertisers in the USA), reminded Musk that the platforms they must be safe for everyone and suitable for advertisers. This is non-negotiable – they added – and we expect Twitter to keep its commitments.
The involvement of Saudi Arabia
In the company’s latest available quarterly of Twitter, the ad was worth 90% of revenue. Losing her, for Elon Musk, would be a big problem. Last – but not least – still unresolved question concerns the high rate of fake profiles on the platform. The Twitter Blue service is a partial solution, everything will also depend on the success it will collect. Also because Tesla’s CEO will also have to deal with Foreign Investment Committee, urged by Democratic Senator Chris Murphyto investigate the implications for national security of Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the acquisition process of the platform: Kingdom Holding Company, one of the largest holding companies in the country chaired by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, owns a stake in the Twitter company and would be the second largest investor right after Musk. Relations between Washington and Riyadh have been tense since OPEC + cut oil production and no one intends to exacerbate them due to the acquisition of the social network.
