Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Elon Musk: Twitter Roughly Breaking Even with 1,500 Employees


Wed 12 Apr 2023 | 10:46 AM
Elon Musk
Elon Musk
By Ahmad El-Assasy

Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter Inc., claimed on Wednesday that the social media business is "essentially breaking even," noting that the majority of its advertisers have returned and that its aggressive cost-cutting measures have begun to pay off following significant layoffs.

In an interview with the BBC that was live-streamed on Twitter Spaces, Musk stated that Twitter currently has roughly 1,500 employees, a significant decrease from the "just under 8,000 staff members" it had prior to his acquisition of the company in October.

Since Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion, it has been characterised by confusion and uncertainty as many of the engineers who are in charge of resolving and avoiding service disruptions have been laid off, according to insiders who spoke to Reuters.

According to internet watchdog group NetBlocks, Twitter experienced its sixth significant outage since the start of the year last week when a problem blocked thousands of users from accessing links.

Musk recognised some issues, such as recent outages, but claimed they were short-lived.

He claims that Twitter had to take extraordinary measures due to a $3 billion negative cash flow crisis, which included mass layoffs.

In the interview, which attracted more than 3 million listeners, he added, "We might be cash-flow positive this quarter if things go well," adding that the company is now seeing all-time high user numbers.

Since his acquisition, Twitter has experienced a sharp fall in advertising.

This, according to Musk, was caused by the cyclical nature of advertising spending, some of which was "political." The majority of its advertisers, he claimed on Wednesday, have come back.

The billionaire, who also owns rocket manufacturer SpaceX and electronic car producer Tesla, claimed he has no one in mind to succeed him as Twitter CEO.

Tesla shareholders have questioned Musk about how much time he spends managing the social media site, and he has stated that finding a new Twitter CEO would be "excellent timing" towards the end of this year.