Musk Reportedly ‘Floated’ Possible Twitter Job Cuts To Raise Funds In Bank Conversations

Elon Musk “floated” the idea of potentially cutting jobs when asked how he would work on generating financial returns for Twitter, a report said, citing people familiar with the SpaceX and Tesla CEO’s conversations with bankers for the purchase of the social media site.

Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion earlier this week.

The people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg that Musk made the suggestion of cutting jobs in calls with bankers as a way to improve financial returns. At the time of his bank discussions, Musk had no access to Twitter’s financials, the outlet noted.

Furthermore, The Washington Post reported that Musk discussed “efficiencies” for Twitter and that these “could include job cuts.” There has been no public confirmation on whether the company will lay off some employees under Musk’s leadership. On the other hand, Musk has been advocating for “free speech” on the platform.

News of Musk’s supposed talks with bankers came days after Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal reportedly told employees during a town hall meeting Monday that while he was unsure of how the company will move forward under Musk, there were no talks about job cuts yet.

Some commentators suggested that job cuts may take place at the Twitter policy department as he has criticized some of the company’s past policy-related decisions, The Verge reported. On Tuesday, Musk responded to “Breaking Points” podcast co-host Saagar Enjeti’s post about Twitter top lawyer Vijaya Gadde censoring “the Hunter Biden laptop story.” Musk said the censorship “was obviously incredibly inappropriate.”

On Wednesday, Musk tweeted that “for Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally.”

Meanwhile, there have reportedly been extreme fluctuations in Twitter follower numbers since Musk acquired the company. Data from social media statistics and analytics firm Social Blade revealed that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., lost more than 18,000 followers Tuesday, while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., gained more than 100,000 followers in the last three days.

Official plans for Twitter under Musk’s leadership have yet to be announced publicly, but it appears Musk is dropping hints about possible changes in the near future. He said, “Twitter DMs should have end to end encryption like Signal, so no one can spy on or hack your messages.” He previously said he wants to make “Twitter better” by establishing “open source” algorithms and overtaking spam bots.