Where is Twitter going with Elon Musk?

In the early hours of October 28, Elon Musk finally got it: Twitter Inc. fell into his hands for 44,000 million dollars after months of negotiations. Now, just two weeks later, that dream is starting to turn sour.

“There is no way to sugarcoat this message. Twitter bankruptcy is not out of the question,” Musk wrote in an email to the entire staff on October 10, according to a scoop from ‘Bloomberg News’.

It was the first thing most workers saw on Thursday morning. A warning accompanied by measures: the prohibition of teleworking unless Musk himself personally approves it and the obligation to work at least 40 hours a week. A new strategy to try to deal with the growing internal crisis of the platform.

“For those who are able to go all the way and play to win, Twitter is a good place (…) And if you’re not, I totally understand, but then Twitter is not for you,” added the new manager.

And it is that bankruptcy, sponsored by the economic recession in the country, and the massive departure of essential workers from the company is putting the social network on the ropes. All these factors, together with Musk’s confusing messages, increase the alarm among users of the social network and the rumors that his end could be closer than far.

“While Twitter pursues the goal of elevating citizen journalism, the media elite will do everything possible to prevent that from happening,” the American wrote on his profile on Friday.

A high-stakes internal reform that Musk and his advisers — known to Twitter employees as “thugs” — have only just begun.

A wave of mass layoffs that has only just begun

Hours after getting hold of Twitter, Musk called his first meeting on the morning of October 28 at his San Francisco building. The appeal was for the high positions of human resources, in charge of carrying out their “readjustment” plan, that is, thousands of layoffs.

The human resources team warned Musk of the riskiness of the matter, with layoffs that went against the agreements with the workers and could cost billions in lawsuits. However, the manager decided to continue until almost half the 7,500 workers that Twitter had.

The person who was in charge of evaluating these risks and defining more details about the dismissals, Robert Kaiden, was fired the day after finishing the assignment. Some witnesses saw him leave the building, according to ‘Bloomberg’ and ‘The New York Times’.

Other top executives received his termination letter by email. A director of the computer engineering department vomited into a garbage can after being ordered to fire hundreds of workers. Many had to stay overnight in the office to carry out Musk’s orders.

The billionaire has even eliminated the monthly rest day agreed with the workers since the start of the pandemic, something that has contributed to increasing internal unrest. Now, employees have more work, more stress due to the threat of closing the company and less free time.

A situation of lack of control that made several of the managers resign on their own. Amid the verified account crisis, Yoel Roth, who has overseen the response to combat hate speech, misinformation and spam on the service, resigned on Thursday, according to Reuters.

“Former @Twitter head of trust and security,” Roth captioned his profile Thursday night.

He is one of the many who have decided to jump ship before it sinks. Twitter’s chief information security officer, Lea Kissner, tweeted that she had resigned on Thursday. Privacy Director Damien Kieran and Compliance Director Marianne Fogarty also did so.

Something that has made many companies such as Volkswagen or General Motors have decided to withdraw advertising from the social network. At least until you learn more about the management that Musk plans and the risk that it entails.

07:01

A loss of manpower and ad revenue that adds to the platform’s heavy debt. Twitter is $13 billion in debt and faces interest payments totaling about $1.2 billion in the coming year. Payments exceed revenue, which stood at $1.1 billion at the end of June.

The confusion of verified fake accounts

“In the coming days, the top priority is to find and suspend any verified bots/trolls/spam,” Musk wrote in the Nov. 10 email to his workers.

And it is that Twitter is not only facing an internal crisis, it is also facing a wave of fake accounts that have now managed to obtain “verified” status.

This after the new boss decided to raise the price of Twitter Blue subscriptions to $8 and add to these the option to automatically verify the user. A measure to ensure that subscriptions represent half of the company’s income, according to Musk himself.

The problem is that this has triggered the use of verification by fake accounts, which have massively impersonated other people since they only need to pay $8 a month to do so.

Identity thefts have been extensive: from the former president of the United States, George Bush, to the same jesus christ. Something that, far from being funny or anecdotal, could cause problems in the long term.

The people and institutions that have had verification have always been considered a reliable source, since it was assumed that their identity was verified. But now this is no longer the case, something that could lead to confusion in the official accounts of presidents, emergency services and other public institutions.

Another issue that has generated concern among users is freedom of expression. And it is that although Musk assures that he wants to promote “citizen journalism”, he has made his political position clear on several occasions, such as in these midterm elections in which he expressed his support for the Republicans.

A torrent of events that has put the company in a very compromised situation. On October 31, parallel to the layoffs, Musk decided to throw a Halloween party where some employees tried to maintain their composure and others broke down in tears.

Now, the social network is seen as a risky investment and, despite the fact that its users are increasing day after day, its future is very uncertain.

There are many who take for granted that this is the end point of Twitter, at least as its users know it. They have even begun to resonate names of other social networks that will replace it when it ceases to exist.

With Reuters and local media