Elon Musk reportedly told Twitter employees on Thursday that bankruptcy for the company isn’t out of the question, the Managing Editor of tech newsletter Platformer tweeted.
Musk is conducting an all-hands meeting with Twitter employees.
Elon Musk is doing an all hands with Twitter employees. They got a one hour notice and he showed up 15 minutes late.
— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) November 10, 2022
Wow. Elon Musk just told Twitter employees he’s not sure how much run rate the company has and “bankruptcy isn’t out of the question.”
— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) November 10, 2022
Yahoo Finance reported:
Musk also reportedly told employees that if they weren’t physically at the office 40 hours a week, they might as well file their resignation letters. Musk has been adamant about workers returning to the office, even though Twitter previously allowed employees to work from anywhere.
Several Twitter executives have stepped down within the company in recent days including chief information security officer Lea Kissner, who announced that they were leaving the firm early Thursday.
In addition to Kissner, Twitter’s head of ad sales, Robin Wheeler, and head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, have left the company. Wheeler hosted a Twitter Q&A with Musk on Wednesday designed to help assuage advertisers’ concerns that it won’t be able to moderate user content enough to prevent the spread of misinformation and hate speech.
Elon Musk tells Twitter staff bankruptcy is possible, sources say.
Yoel Roth, the head of trust and safety, and Robin Wheeler, who was leading that big Twitter spaces call with advertisers, are both now out, sources add.
Also, no more free food.https://t.co/nDMLc3Eovg— Sarah Frier (@sarahfrier) November 10, 2022
Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran and Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty have also resigned, according to an internal message seen by Reuters.
The New York Post added:
The exodus follows Musk’s move to swiftly clean house after taking over Twitter for $44 billion on Oct. 27. He announced plans to cut half its workforce last week, promised to stop fake accounts and is charging $8 a month for the Twitter Blue service that will include a blue check verification.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it was watching Twitter with “deep concern” after the social media platform’s top privacy and compliance officers quit, potentially putting it at risk of violating regulatory orders.
“We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” Douglas Farrar, the FTC’s director of public affairs, told Reuters.
“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them,” Farrar said.
In May, Twitter agreed to pay $150 million to settle allegations by the FTC it misused private information, like phone numbers, to target advertising to users after telling them the information was collected only for security reasons.
An attorney on Twitter’s privacy team reported the executive departures in a note seen by Reuters and posted to Twitter’s Slack messaging system on Thursday.
In the note, the attorney mentioned hearing Twitter’s legal chief Alex Spiro say that Musk was willing to take a “huge amount of risk” with Twitter. “Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC,” the attorney quoted Spiro as saying.
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