‘Unfortunately, no choice’ – Elon Musk justifies massive retrenchment: 10 points

Amid a spell of layoffs at Twitter, one of the worst the social network has ever seen in nearly 16 years of its existence, Elon Musk on Saturday justified the restructuring decision as he stressed “unfortunately there is no choice”.

Twitter, he added, is losing $ 4 million a day. “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required (sic),” Musk tweeted amid wide criticism of how layoffs have been carried out within a week of acquisition.

Here are ten points on Twitter layoffs:

1) The world’s richest person on Friday stated a bizarre reason for the “massive drop” in revenue of the firm as he blamed “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 (sic),” he tweeted.

2) On Saturday morning, Elon Musk yet again insisted that “Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged.” “In fact, we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline *below* our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press, (sic),” he further added.

3) Chaos seems to be enveloping the firm as about half of the Twitter staff has been laid off amid retrenchment moves. Nearly 3,800 employees have been reported to be relieved.

4) India too has seen top executives being sacked. Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore are the three cities where the social media firm operates, and employs close to 300 people.

5) Musk had taken over the firm last week when three top executives – CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde – were asked to leave.

6) While there was controversy about these executives being eligible for over $100 million dollars, Musk had rebuffed the claims regarding them being asked to go.

7) It’s not just retrenchment that is Twitter’s concern right now. Top firms – including General Mills Inc and luxury automaker Audi of America – have paused advertising on Twiitter. United Airlines Holdings is the latest to join the list.

8) Microsoft Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and Charter Communications are also reported to be considering pausing their advertising.

9) Musk had acquired Twitter last week finally in culmination of $44 billion deal.

10) The deal, however, had been mired in controversies for months; and even led to legal wrangling.