Elon Musk’s X Saga Gets More Interesting: Check Out Key Developments

In 2022, billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion. Elon Musk sent his trusted people, including former Boring Company Executive Steve Davis and his cousin James Musk, to check whether the current employees are worth their pay, according to The Telegraph. Elon Musk soon laid off 6,000 workers, or 80% of the workforce of Twitter now X, a move that shocked the whole working sector.

According to the reports, the employees were asked to justify their job roles and explain why they should be retained. The departments that suffered the most include product and design teams and inclusion departments. The content moderation team of Twitter was also reduced. One source stated to The Telegraph that “the company was clearly bloated. The organisation must be right-sized. However, Elon Musk cut more than expected. When Elon Musk reduces the team, he removes the entire team, which later leads to chaos.”

Challenges like increased hate speech

The drastic reduction of workforce in Twitter by Elon Musk led to the predictions of a tough time ahead. Entire teams were eliminated, major employees were fired suddenly, and new free speech policies reinstated suspended accounts like Donald Trump’s. The remaining staff of the company were warned about ‘hardcore, high intensity’ work hours’. Many people were in doubt regarding the Elon Musk-led ‘X’.

But despite complaints by the users regarding the increase in hate speech, the rise of white supremacy conspiracies on the platform, and various issues related to the functionalities, X has still managed to rise and survive. According to the critics, ‘X’ is full of hate speech and misinformation.

One of the sources stated that “Elon Musk is hoping to revamp the business with a challenger mindset. However, cutting the entire team without a clear plan led to too many gaps, and the talented employees found better opportunities for themselves at growing startups like OpenAI.”

Musk’s layoffs ‘set a new standard’

A technology investor, David Freidberg, stated that Elon Musk’s layoffs set a new standard for the scale of job cuts.

Other giants of Silicon Valley, including Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta, also made major job cuts of a total 165,269 in 2022, 263,180 in 2023, and 96,551 in Amazon as per layoff data. The targets of these cuts were primarily the middle managers.

From Musk’s viewpoint, the biggest impact is on the company’s valuation, which had dropped to $14 billion, which is far below $44 billion, the amount in which Elon Musk has bought Twitter.