Musk to cut half of Twitter jobs and end remote work for the rest, report says

Status
Not open for further replies.
The advertisers will come back. Slowly, quietly, once the stupidity quiets down. They want access to those potential customers. If the kill all white people real hate speech did not scare them off, the odd ball stuff the left makes believe is hate speech the will not either.
If the person did not have a job that generated wealth, or supported generating those who did, Elon was right to can them. He appears to have been generous as well. The WARN act only requires 60 days, not 90.

Elon caved to the ADL, because they can turn off his ability to bank. Ask Kanye.

That is a problem that society needs to address. You aren't "marginalized" if you have that much power.
 
Can we focus on the business part of Twitter's reorg rather than right-wing fantasies of what it entails, please?

Simply speaking, Musk is out of his depth. He seems more concerned about the optics of acting quickly and dramatically than an intelligent, nuanced review of what's working and what isn't. There's no need to announce massive layoffs and then backtrack on them days later; just take the time to evaluate the company structure and lay off only those people who are actually redundant. Much less chaotic and keeps things humming until you're ready to shake things up.

And whatever your views on free speech, the truth is that companies don't want their ads running next to tweets from election reality deniers, anti-vaxxers and white supremacists. The advertisers aren't going to "come back" if they see a surge of toxic content. If Musk wants a steady ship, he can't loosen the content policies all that much.
 
Last edited:
Not surprised. One of the key metrics they used for drawing up their lists were lines of code committed. This is stupid for... an absolute ton of reasons, least of which not being the higher up you go as a SWE, the less code you're working on, as you're doing architecture, design, cross-collab, future looking type work... you hand off the mundane coding tasks to lower devs.
Musk is failing, in many different ways, with this. Hopefully, finally, people see Musk for what he's become and realize he's not some genius, he's not some super business savant, and he's not going to make it a freeze peach zone for everyone to write whatever they want forever.
 
Any source for this? Tons of software at both Tesla and SpaceX, Elon would likely know better.
Musk doesn't, he's just not that smart.
I know two people who were at twitter (one bailed after 1-Nov stock vest, the other waited and hoped for layoff), one of which was involved in the layoff decisions for the area they worked in.

https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1587966900516147200
also mentions it (linking to the tweet as the news article is behind a paywall)
 
Can we focus on the business part of Twitter's reorg rather than right-wing fantasies of what it entails, please?

Simply speaking, Musk is out of his depth. He seems more concerned about the optics of acting quickly and dramatically than an intelligent, nuanced review of what's working and what isn't. There's no need to announce massive layoffs and then backtrack on them days later; just take the time to evaluate the company structure and lay off only those people who are actually redundant. Much less chaotic and keeps things humming until you're ready to shake things up.

And whatever your views on free speech, the truth is that companies don't want their ads running next to tweets from election reality deniers, anti-vaxxers and white supremacists. Musk The advertisers aren't going to "come back" if they see a surge of toxic content. If Musk wants a steady ship, he can't loosen the content policies all that much.
They claim their moderation numbers are unchanged.

As for the mass layoffs. I think Musk was up against it. There was a lot of celebs complaining about twitchy performance... things not loading. I think its safe to assume some of the people at twitter where already engaged in sabotage. Agreed though its pretty silly to fire someone on Monday and call them up on Friday. Technically though no one is fired yet... they are all employees until Feb from what I understand.
 
Sound a bit odd. Laid a bunch off on Friday and by Saturday night they were being asked back. "As reverenced by posts on social media."

It would takes weeks far an organization to notice that there is no one in their group left to fill those rolls. Especially when many of the workers are spread around the country and working from home.
 
They claim their moderation numbers are unchanged.

As for the mass layoffs. I think Musk was up against it. There was a lot of celebs complaining about twitchy performance... things not loading. I think its safe to assume some of the people at twitter where already engaged in sabotage. Agreed though its pretty silly to fire someone on Monday and call them up on Friday. Technically though no one is fired yet... they are all employees until Feb from what I understand.
Musk also hasn't implemented any major content policy changes yet. As it is, he's talked about forming a council that would determine the company's approach before there are any big revisions.

It is true that Musk didn't kick anyone out right away, but if that's the case, there's even less reason to rush to announce layoffs. I don't know that we have enough evidence to suggest sabotage, but even if there was... it's doubtful that such a large a chunk of the workforce was engaged in it. It's still more about putting on a show than meaningful action.
 
companies don't want their ads running next to tweets from election reality deniers, anti-vaxxers and white supremacists

Yes, they absolutely do want this. They want this desperately. Google has a de-facto monopoly on internet advertising, and they've cut off many businesses for their political alignments.

If you're a gun company, you can't buy ads on Google. Gun sales are off the charts, it's a huge industry. If Twitter opens doors to banned industries, it will be a "shut up and take my money" run all the way to the bank.

Don't you think people want to know what docs prescribe ivermectin and which pharmacies actually let you buy it?
 
Yes, they absolutely do want this. They want this desperately. Google has a de-facto monopoly on internet advertising, and they've cut off many businesses for their political alignments.

If you're a gun company, you can't buy ads on Google. Gun sales are off the charts, it's a huge industry. If Twitter opens doors to banned industries, it will be a "shut up and take my money" run all the way to the bank.

Don't you think people want to know what docs prescribe ivermectin and which pharmacies actually let you buy it?
There are certain things that are very hard to advertise online, basically, anything overseen by the ATF is going to be problematic due to age restrictions and advertising laws. That's not an "Us vs Them issue", it's a "what if the algorithm is wrong and it blasts these ads to 7-year-olds" problem because that would be a whole world of lawsuits and fines of which there would be very little defense.
 
There are certain things that are very hard to advertise online, basically, anything overseen by the ATF is going to be problematic due to age restrictions and advertising laws. That's not an "Us vs Them issue", it's a "what if the algorithm is wrong and it blasts these ads to 7-year-olds" problem because that would be a whole world of lawsuits and fines of which there would be very little defense.
That's why one of the first things Elon should do is raise the age to use twit to 18.
 
There are certain things that are very hard to advertise online, basically, anything overseen by the ATF is going to be problematic due to age restrictions and advertising laws.

I don't think these exist. I work in the gun industry and all of the companies in marketing run ads for gun stuff. In fact, gun marketing has certain protections due to the civil rights aspects of gun ownership.

Besides, if they advertise firearms to minors, that's bad business. They aren't the target demo. If you run a gun store, you don't want your ad views to go to random tweens, you want it to go to pro-gun people.

But in any case, that's just a single example of one category of businesses that have been banished by Google. Let everyone advertise, that's money on the table.
 
That's why one of the first things Elon should do is raise the age to use twit to 18.
Yes, completely, same with a number of other social media sites as well... Like they did in China which requires Government ID to register because they found social media was detrimental to developing minds and young adults. Now sure you can go down the "government controlling the media" route with China on this matter, so while their ultimate intentions behind the ban are questionable the science backs their decision 100%.
But the whole 13+ age requirement for the internet is primarily based off the 1996 telecommunications act and the follow up COPPA (Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act), which actually has very little to do with privacy or protection. It's a lobbyist mess and they both need to be replaced but that is a bigger battle that I doubt Twitter and Elon are equipped to tackle.
 
1667852917906.png
 
I don't think these exist. I work in the gun industry and all of the companies in marketing run ads for gun stuff. In fact, gun marketing has certain protections due to the civil rights aspects of gun ownership.

Besides, if they advertise firearms to minors, that's bad business. They aren't the target demo. If you run a gun store, you don't want your ad views to go to random tweens, you want it to go to pro-gun people.

But in any case, that's just a single example of one category of businesses that have been banished by Google. Let everyone advertise, that's money on the table.
Guns being advertised to kids online doesn't have a law against it exactly, but after the 2016 "Start them Young" report found the NRA and the NSSF doing just that lawsuits went out against the advertisers promoting the ads and I am checking but they settled then just developed an internal "we don't do that now" policy.
I thought that policy was a result of laws, but it was just lawsuits.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Axman
like this
Yes, they absolutely do want this. They want this desperately. Google has a de-facto monopoly on internet advertising, and they've cut off many businesses for their political alignments.

If you're a gun company, you can't buy ads on Google. Gun sales are off the charts, it's a huge industry. If Twitter opens doors to banned industries, it will be a "shut up and take my money" run all the way to the bank.

Don't you think people want to know what docs prescribe ivermectin and which pharmacies actually let you buy it?
Eh, it's not quite that simple. On top of what Lakados said, guns are just one narrow slice of the pie. There's not much point to catering to gun makers and stores if it costs a bunch of large advertisers. And not to take this too far off track, but no good platform takes advertising for doctors and pharmacies that offer treatments based on junk science and misinformation. That's a class action lawsuit waiting to happen.
 
Musk also hasn't implemented any major content policy changes yet. As it is, he's talked about forming a council that would determine the company's approach before there are any big revisions.

It is true that Musk didn't kick anyone out right away, but if that's the case, there's even less reason to rush to announce layoffs. I don't know that we have enough evidence to suggest sabotage, but even if there was... it's doubtful that such a large a chunk of the workforce was engaged in it. It's still more about putting on a show than meaningful action.
I didn't mean to suggest 3,700 employees where engaged in sabotage. It might be safe to assume at least a few of them where.

I'm sure the layoffs have more to do with the fact twitter looses 4 million dollars a day then anything else. The average salary at twitter is $150k... so Musk saved the company 1.5 million a day. That is just in salary... he also probably saved another 1/4 in benefits, and he can also choose to downsize offices and find more savings. Probably not 4 million a day but it gets it closer to net zero.

I think Musk doesn't care if it makes money... but it can't keep loosing 4 million a day either. If he can slash 2 million out of salary and related costs... find another source of income. Charging 7.5m users $8 a month for a blue check would make the 2 million a day he would be short if netting out at zero after cutting staff. Of course assuming all the ad revenue doesn't dry up. I don't know how many people are really going to pay for verified status... but the more that do the less Twitter need care about ad dollars.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Axman
like this
but it can't keep loosing 4 million a day either

So he let go 3700 people. If we assume with total benefits + salary that is in the 90k range (just guessing here probably on the low side) he just saved $912k/day.
 
So he let go 3700 people. If we assume with total benefits + salary that is in the 90k range (just guessing here probably on the low side) he just saved $912k/day.
We know because its been made public. 147k is the average salary at Twitter. I'm not sure if that is exact with the half layed off... but its probably around there. Why I said 1.5m a day. They have some lower paid employees... but they also have a lot of management types making 300k.
 
So with other low hanging operating efficiencies he's potentially already solved 50% of the deficit issue.
Assuming he doesn't loose half his advertising dollars I guess.
There is also the potentially BS money twitter was getting. Not to sound like a nut job... but the Canadian Gov just made a big thing about stopping advertising. Makes me wonder what they where really paying for with all the back end content moderation stuff coming to light. The Canadian gov has had multiple scandals over the years paying for favors with advertising money. I have a feeling a bunch of ad money won't be coming back.. mainly because they where buying more then just advertisements. Even beyond the stuff that has already been called out like... 15k in ads = verified checks.
 
So with other low hanging operating efficiencies he's potentially already solved 50% of the deficit issue.

I've thought about quitting my job, taking a side gig, and firing up my old website over this. If I can monetize again...

Google shut down my business because they cut off my advertising. It was just a counter-culture entertainment page.
 
I've thought about quitting my job, taking a side gig, and firing up my old website over this. If I can monetize again...

Google shut down my business because they cut off my advertising. It was just a counter-culture entertainment page.
What kind of "counter-culture entertainment" did it contain?
 
What kind of "counter-culture entertainment" did it contain?

Parkour, funny videos, lock-picking, geocaching, health and fitness, zombie shit, pandemic modeling, just general men's interest stuff.
 
Musk is expanding twitter to compete against Youtube and Tiktok as seen in this thread. The summary is

1) Long form text.
2) Long videos that pay creators more than that Youtube pays.
3) Reviving Vine.
 
Musk is expanding twitter to compete against Youtube and Tiktok as seen in this thread. The summary is

1) Long form text.
2) Long videos that pay creators more than that Youtube pays.
3) Reviving Vine.
4) Hope TikTok is banned/shut down. Please?
 
They don't like Democrats?!



Problem was that was true back in the southern democrat confederate flag hay day. Now they are all Republican. As a lifllelong Republican I am sickened how the party is now with nutjobs like MTG and LB front and center. And let's not Forget Trump who thinks his daughter is hot and would date her. WTF says that about their daughter. And she just stood there and smiled. F'ed up.
 
Last edited:
So let advertisers choose the Twitter accounts they want to sponsor.

Catturd would have ten ads between every post...
So they dramatically limit their reach versus running ads across most of Twitter? That doesn't strike me as a very smart business strategy.
 
So with other low hanging operating efficiencies he's potentially already solved 50% of the deficit issue.
Only if that doesn't change revenue. There's two big issues with going about this the way he did:

1) You just can't identify who is useful/needed in less than a week. It really is going to take more time to rate employees and figure out who can go and who can stay. Hence the "Oh can you come back?" thing. That can hurt your company which hurts revenue.

2) Advertisers are already nervous, because of his talk about free speech absolutism. They need to have their fears calmed, or they will pause ad buys. Firing a ton of employees, including those that do moderation, is NOT going to calm those fears.

You can fire everyone, cut your staff costs down to zero, and you'd be worse off than before because it would also cut your revenue down to zero. With a business cutting to save money only makes sense if it saves more than it costs.
 
So they dramatically limit their reach versus running ads across most of Twitter? That doesn't strike me as a very smart business strategy.

He's got a million followers. An ad campaign is like, 10,000 ads.

How many companies would want to sponsor Snoop Dogg? It makes perfect sense.
 
I didn't mean to suggest 3,700 employees where engaged in sabotage. It might be safe to assume at least a few of them where.

I'm sure the layoffs have more to do with the fact twitter looses 4 million dollars a day then anything else. The average salary at twitter is $150k... so Musk saved the company 1.5 million a day. That is just in salary... he also probably saved another 1/4 in benefits, and he can also choose to downsize offices and find more savings. Probably not 4 million a day but it gets it closer to net zero.

I think Musk doesn't care if it makes money... but it can't keep loosing 4 million a day either. If he can slash 2 million out of salary and related costs... find another source of income. Charging 7.5m users $8 a month for a blue check would make the 2 million a day he would be short if netting out at zero after cutting staff. Of course assuming all the ad revenue doesn't dry up. I don't know how many people are really going to pay for verified status... but the more that do the less Twitter need care about ad dollars.
I don't know if we can even say "at least a few." This is one of those allegations that needs directly supporting evidence.

Twitter does need to ensure its long-term financial health, but the solution is likely more nuanced than Musk would care to admit. People like him love the thought of a Steve Jobs-style overhaul that makes them look like corporate rockstars; they don't want to accept that some rescues involve quiet, subtle changes.
 
He's got a million followers. An ad campaign is like, 10,000 ads.

How many companies would want to sponsor Snoop Dogg? It makes perfect sense.
You'd have to show that the revenue from limiting ads to a handful of stars will offset the loss from advertising to a large chunk of Twitter's userbase. I'm not sure that would actually happen.
 
We know speech is speech.

What people do not know, is that free speech doesn't mean that the newspaper/Youtube/[H]/Twitter/Facebook/etc. have to let you say anything you want on their platforms. That violates the companies' rights.
The right being all up in arms about free speech, really just want to make you parrot "their speech" in the name of "free speech". I don't have to say shit, nor does my hypothetical company.

Kind of like how they use religious freedom as an excuse to violate anothers' right to freedom of religion. Hypocrisy.
It violates the first amendment when they censor by request of the government. Learn your facts.
 
We know speech is speech.

What people do not know, is that free speech doesn't mean that the newspaper/Youtube/[H]/Twitter/Facebook/etc. have to let you say anything you want on their platforms. That violates the companies' rights.
The right being all up in arms about free speech, really just want to make you parrot "their speech" in the name of "free speech". I don't have to say shit, nor does my hypothetical company.

Kind of like how they use religious freedom as an excuse to violate anothers' right to freedom of religion. Hypocrisy.
I am trying to understand your point. Do really believe that there was no partisan abuse in the way Twitter was moderated before?
 
I am trying to understand your point. Do really believe that there was no partisan abuse in the way Twitter was moderated before?

It's possible he doesn't know that the government was directing Twitter (along with Facebook, Instagram, Wikipedia, and on, and on...) because it's only being reported by conservative and independent media.
 
Let's not get too excited gentlemen. The ADL has told a man that just came off his own money what they "expect" and he has already given into their demands. No "election denial" will be allowed.
Does the ADL mean posts like this?
https://twitter.com/politico/status/1589568452699820032

POLITICO

@politico


The 2020 presidential election was rife with allegations of voting machine hacks that were later debunked. Yet there are real risks that hackers could tunnel into voting equipment and other election infrastructure to try to undermine Tuesday’s vote.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top