Twitter: Elon Musk wants to save money by any means necessary

The negative headlines surrounding the takeover of Twitter by tech billionaire Elon Musk continue unabated. Now it has become known that the Tesla CEO is presumably willing to use any means to cut costs. For example, he is said not to pay rent for the open-plan offices in San Francisco and the rest of the world for weeks.

Rent arrears at Twitter

The world was astonished when it was announced that Elon Musk would indeed take over Twitter. In the first few days after Musk symbolically entered the short messaging service’s executive suite with a kitchen sink, the public was shocked at the billionaire’s actions. So he immediately announced mass layoffs, which he also directly put into action. On top of that, the South African native plans to defund the social network’s server structure. Experts fear instability in the operation of Twitter in this regard. The declared goal is to save as much money as possible.

After all, the short message service is currently still a real minus business. But it is apparently not only Twitter employees and users who are suffering from the questionable actions of the tech visionary. As has now become known, the company has not been paying rent for its business premises for several weeks. This probably does not only affect the open-plan offices at the company headquarters in San Francisco. The offices worldwide are to be affected. This emerges from a report of the New York Times. This refers thereby to informants from the closer vapor circle of Twitter.

Elon Musk is driving tough austerity

The backward rents seem to be only the tip of the iceberg. From the hard austerity course of Elon Musk are probably also the terminated former Twitter employees affected. According to the informants of the New York Times, there is open talk within the company about the negative consequences that would occur if the dismissed employees were not paid their due severance pay without further ado. A hint of insolvency can be sensed when one takes a look at the planned auction of office furniture of the short message service in January. Apparently, Musk seems to be willing to use any means to get out of the red at Twitter.

After all, the short message service is currently running at just under $4 million a day. This is said to be mainly due to the fact that many advertisers turned their backs on the social network after Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Reducing costs alone will probably not solve the problem in the short or long term. Rather, new sources of revenue must be found. Twitter Blue should actually help here as a kind of premium membership. Members not only receive the coveted blue tick for a monthly payment of just under 10 euros. On top of that, Musk promises in the meantime that one should probably only get half as much advertising displayed.

Wave of dismissal does not ebb

Internally, Twitter still seems to be bubbling away. Thus, even a month and a half after Musk took over the chief post, there is still mistrust and fear on the part of the staff towards the new chief executive. After all, there are probably still layoffs on the part of the established Twitter employees. Musk regularly uses unfair demands as justification. Now the Tesla boss, together with the rest of the management team, has sent out a confidentiality pledge as part of a circular email. Anyone who has not confirmed this by a certain deadline must expect to be excluded from internal communication channels. The focus here is not only on “simple” programmers, but probably also on high-ranking managers.

However, it seems that Musk is not only dismissing employees for cost reasons. Rather, mistrust also seems to play a major role here. After all, the New York Times also reports that the new Twitter boss is now increasingly bringing Tesla personnel into the social network. In particular, the e-car manufacturer’s lawyers are overflowing. Is someone possibly preparing for possible legal disputes here? With the recent dissolution of the “Trust & Safety Council”, the tech billionaire has also dissolved an important unit in the fight against hate speech, conspiratorial content and questionable media. This seems to be in line with Musk’s self-image of free speech and culminated in him sharing a post by conspiracy ideologues QAnon.