SAN FRANCISCO — Two weeks after closing its $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Elon Musk emailed employees at the social media company late Wednesday as he continues to lay off workers and develop new The first communication with them after the high voltage actuation of the product.
In two emails seen by The New York Times, Mr. Musk painted a bleak financial picture for Twitter and outlined changes at the company, including ending its remote work policy and a renewed focus on generating revenue and fighting spam.
“Sorry, this is my first email to the company, but there’s no way to whitewash it,” Mr. Musk, 51, wrote in an email. “The economy is going to be bad going forward.” He added that Twitter is too reliant on advertising, vulnerable to a pullback in brand spending, and needs to increase revenue from subscriptions.
In another note to employees, he wrote: “The absolute priority is to find and suspend any verified bots/trolls/spam.”
gentlemen. Musk’s email comes as Twitter continues to be rocked by his changes. Last week, he laid off about 50% of the company’s 7,500 employees. Meanwhile, Mr. Musk has been pushing for product changes to help Twitter make more money, including promoting subscription products. He has previously said the company is losing $4 million a day.
Changes to Elon Musk’s Twitter
Quick overhaul. Elon Musk, known as an aggressive manager, has moved quickly to revamp Twitter since closing the $44 billion acquisition of the social media company in October. Here are some of the changes so far:
Twitter’s communications division, which was almost completely fired, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bloomberg earlier reported on Mr. Musk’s email.
Three Twitter executives responsible for security, privacy and compliance also resigned on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the matter and internal documents seen by The New York Times.
Executives leaving include Lea Kissner, Twitter’s chief information security officer; Damien Kieran, its chief privacy officer; and Marianne Fogarty, chief compliance officer. Their resignations come a day before Twitter’s deadline to file a compliance report with the Federal Trade Commission, which is overseeing the company’s privacy practices as part of a 2011 settlement.
Twitter typically reviews its products for privacy issues before rolling them out to users in order to avoid additional fines from the FTC and continue to comply with the settlement. But because of the rapid product development under the leadership of Mr. Musk, engineers may be forced to “self-certify” so that their projects meet privacy requirements, an employee wrote in an internal message seen by The Times.
“Elon has shown that he is only concerned with making up for the loss he suffered from his failure to escape his binding obligations to buy Twitter,” the employee wrote. The change to Twitter’s FTC scrutiny could result in hefty fines and put people who work for the company at risk, the person warned.
More on Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition
“This poses enormous personal, professional and legal risks to engineers: I expect all of you to be under pressure from management to push for changes that could lead to major events,” they wrote.
In an email to employees on Wednesday, Mr. Musk told employees they must return to the office on Thursday and work at least 40 hours a week. Twitter’s workforce has been in remote locations since the early days of the pandemic, and in recent years its employees have been allowed to choose where they want to live instead of staying in cities where Twitter has offices.
in some mr. Musk’s other companies, including electric car maker Tesla and rocket maker SpaceX, also said employees must come into the office to work 40 hours a week.