His colleagues at Longtime Musk, David Sacks and Jason Calacanis, appeared in the company’s directory over the weekend, according to images obtained by The Washington Post. Both had official company emails and their titles were “Staff Software Engineer”. Musk’s title in the directory was CEO, although this position has not been publicly announced. He refers to himself as “Twit Chief”.
Meanwhile, the team was making a decision on what is expected to be the first round of layoffs, which will target nearly a quarter of the more than 7,000 total employees, according to one of the people. The person said the layoffs will harm nearly all departments, and are expected to particularly affect sales, products, engineering, legal, trust and safety in the coming days. After the engineers, some of Twitter’s highest-paid employees are in sales, with many earning more than $300,000, according to documents seen by The Post.
Twitter, Musk, Spiro, Sacks and Calacanis did not respond to requests for comment.
Billionaire owner Tesla bought Twitter for $44 billion last week after several arduous months of negotiations and legal wrangling. Musk first pitched to the company in the spring, then tried to back off months later. Twitter sued to force him to complete the deal, and the entrepreneur eventually agreed and offered to buy the company at the original offer price.
Musk turned to many of his old allies when he started fixing Twitter.
A conservative and donor figure, Sacks has worked with Musk since their days running PayPal together two decades ago. The bags have been posted strong ideas About moderating online content and criticizing censorship from Big Tech.
Court records showed that Calacanis is also an old friend of Musk who has been texting him frequently to advise on the deal, including job cuts.
Calacanes chirp That Saturday was “Day Zero” along with a photo of a cup of coffee on Twitter, adding that he discussed safety issues, along with bots and trolls, with Yoel Roth, the Twitter executive responsible for content moderation policy. Roth then published details about those policies.
On Sunday, Musk released clear internal messages from Roth about Twitter’s metrics, arguing that they show the Twitter board and lawyers “willfully concealed … evidence from the court.” The tweet showed Musk using his newly gained access to inside information to clear accounts.
I met Yoel from Twitter Safety today, and as a long-term Twitter user, I was impressed by his dedication and perspective on security issues.
I asked him to dump the problem directly to the users. This thread is worth your time and amplification. https://t.co/ocoBjflOqM
– [email protected] (Jason) October 30, 2022
The new leadership team is asking questions about every aspect of the business, including details of content moderation, spam and the risks of upcoming elections, the people said.
Another fellow Musk who tweeted about his engagement, Sriram Krishnan, a crypto-focused partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, also tweeted that he was helping out with the deal. The company invested $400 million.
Less than three days after Musk’s ownership, Twitter employees remained aware of any new plans for the company as of Sunday evening, according to several employees contacted by The Post, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their jobs. The company has yet to make an official announcement of the acquisition. The communications department is silent. Rumors of layoffs spread, with some notices quietly coming out.
The layoffs are expected to begin before November 1, when Twitter employees are scheduled to receive additional compensation related to the stock award. On Sunday, Musk tweeted that the report of the impending layoff on Twitter next week was “false.”
Earlier this year, Musk told potential partners in the deal that he plans to cut roughly 75 percent of Twitter’s total workforce, which would leave the company with about 2,000 employees, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Post. Musk told employees last week when he visited Twitter’s headquarters that he does not plan to cut three-quarters of the workforce.
Another person familiar with the deal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters last week, said the total number of layoffs was likely close to 50 percent.
Already, Musk has fired four CEOs, sent Tesla engineers to evaluate Twitter’s software code, and tweeted that he plans to form a content management board of experts.
In the meantime, he explains the difficulties of his new assignment, Musk Tweet off content From a site known to spread misinformation this weekend.
On Saturday, Hillary Clinton, former first lady and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Post a Tweet She criticized the Republican Party for spreading “confused hate and conspiracy theories” that it said emboldened the man who attacked Paul, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, inside the couple’s San Francisco home early Friday.
“There is little chance this story is more than meets the eye,” Musk wrote, in response to the tweet, sharing a link to an article on the Santa Monica Observer website. describe it by fact-checkers as a source of low credibility in favor of the far right. The article claims, without evidence, that Paul Pelosi was drunk and in a fight with a male prostitute, citing a conspiracy theory previously circulated on the right. Other right-wing influencers with whom Musk interacted online also amplified the conspiratorial narrative.
The actions of Musk, who has since removed the tweet, shows that Twitter has a complicated path ahead, particularly in navigating Musk’s public actions and aligning that with what he says in private.
Rachel Lerman contributed to this report.