Tech billionaire Elon Musk also wants to get involved in the product development of the service after a Twitter takeover. Musk said he expects employees to listen to his feature suggestions during a video conference with Twitter employees on Thursday.
While the conversation was intended for staff only, Twitter employees shared information from it so freely that several major US media outlets were able to liveblog it.
Musk prepared the Twitter workforce for possible job cuts. Twitter should be financially healthy – and at the moment the costs are higher than the revenues, he emphasized. However, those who make a significant contribution have nothing to fear.
According to Musk, valuable employees would also be more likely to be allowed to continue working from home. The online service had previously promised employees that they would not be forced back into the offices even after the pandemic ended.
But Musk has only just made his other companies – the electric car manufacturer Tesla and the aerospace company SpaceX – mandatory.
The billionaire also said on Thursday that he wants to increase the number of users to at least one billion, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by Reuters. He also thinks advertising for Twitter is very important.
Musk did not provide details of the proposed $44 billion acquisition. During the question-and-answer session, Musk also spoke about extraterrestrials, among other things, and his belief that Twitter should help “civilization and consciousness.”
It is also unclear whether Musk will eventually become the owner of Twitter. Although he agreed to a takeover with the Twitter board of directors, he is dependent on the approval of the majority of shareholders. At the same time, he declared the deal suspended because he had doubts about the number of fake accounts.
Twitter countered that Musk could not unilaterally put the agreement on hold and was determined to enforce it.
While Musk is offering shareholders $54.20 per share, the price is currently around $38. So Musk has an incentive to renegotiate the price, while many previous shareholders have an interest in selling on his current offering.
