Won’t cut 75% of workforce at Twitter, says Musk at internal meeting: Report

Elon Musk, who is expected to close the Twitter acquisition officially on Friday, October 28, has reportedly addressed concerns regarding job cuts at the company. The social media platform, in whose offices Musk paid a visit to on Wednesday, has reportedly seen employees becoming wary after reports emerged of Musk planning to cut nearly three-fourth of all jobs at the company. 

On October 20, The Washington Post reported citing an internal meeting between Musk and Twitter's investors and shareholders that the executive was planning to cut 75% of all jobs presently being held at Twitter. In response to the same, a Bloomberg report late on Wednesday claimed that Musk, in his visit at the social media company’s headquarters, sought to assure Twitter employees that he was not going to reduce the number of jobs at Twitter by such a massive margin. 

However, reports citing internal sources within Twitter did not detail Musk’s follow-up plans on realigning jobs at the company, but said that the executive is still likely to enforce job cuts within the company. In May this year, Twitter froze its hirings, with chief executive Parag Agrawal stating that the company is undertaking the move to become "responsible and efficient". In July, the company also fired 30% of its talent acquisition team. 

According to market researcher Statista, Twitter had 7,500 employees around the world as of December last year. 

The takeover saga between Twitter and Elon Musk ran into a legal tussle between the two parties. After making a $44 billion offer to buy Twitter in April, Musk sought to back away from the deal — claiming that the company misreported the number of fake accounts on the platform. Twitter countersued Musk at a Delaware court, urging Musk to follow through with his proposed acquisition and stating that the executive had scope to conduct due diligence prior to the acquisition offer — but failed. 

On October 4, a day before the Musk-Twitter court battle was expected to begin, the former’s lawyers said that Musk would follow through with the acquisition — a deal that is now expected to be closed on Friday.