Musk reportedly told Twitter staff that bankruptcy isn't out of the question at all-hands meeting

During an emergency all-hands meeting with Twitter employees, Elon Musk reportedly shared that the threat of bankruptcy is looming.

Image via Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Images
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As we trek through another day in Twitter’s Elon Musk-led era, things are reportedly a bit dire behind closed doors. Elon Musk and other management are said to have called an emergency meeting with all employees, and in said meeting, Musk took a number of questions and concerns by employees. In that conversation, the health of the company came up and Elon reportedly said that Twitter might be in threat of bankruptcy if things don’t improve.

This emergency all-hands meeting reportedly took place on November 10, 2022, with various sources reporting on the details, including Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer and NYT’s Mike Isaac. It was in the meeting that Elon Musk answered various questions about the state of the company, what comes next, and how certain Twitter’s future is. Specifically, Elon Musk made a grim prediction if the company should fail to shape up to his expectations.

Bankruptcy isn’t out of the question,” Elon Musk reportedly told employees.

Twitter's app icon
Elon Musk has been moving quickly to attempt to make Twitter a profitable company, such as launching the Twitter Blue verification system.
Source: Twitter

This comes after a number of important staff just resigned and left Twitter, including its CISO, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer. This also comes on top of a highly controversial rollout of Twitter Blue, which included axing the new official Verification checkmark system on Twitter. The situation at Twitter certainly hasn't simplified much since Musk took over. In fact, in many cases, it now seems to be more complicated and Musk’s words today regarding bankruptcy may be seen as indicative of that chaos.

Nonetheless, Musk continues to steer the Twitter ship. Whether the company actually faces bankruptcy or not remains to be seen. That said, there’s likely plenty more activity coming from Elon’s Twitter as he tries to make the company profitable. Stay tuned for further updates.

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.

From The Chatty
    • reply
      November 10, 2022 10:57 AM

      Twitter is seriously spiralling at this point. /Grabs popcorn


      https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1590744874483339264?t=xlbDgnvNXFG6rKwK3hFH3g&s=19

      "A senior member of Twitter’s legal team just posted this message in Slack:“Everyone should know that our CISO, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer ALL resigned last night. This news will be buried in the return-to-office drama. I believe that is intentional.”"

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 11:00 AM

        Oh, it might be buried in their internal messaging, but it's out and everywhere online today.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 11:02 AM

        Aren't those all kind of necessary roles to have a company that can operate and not eat shit and die? When do we have the celebration party?

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          November 10, 2022 11:07 AM

          Elon can handle those. Don’t worry.

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          November 10, 2022 11:18 AM

          Yes, all those roles are critical, and they have large orgs of people under them doing important work.

          So when people are like "lol why is Twitter 7,000 employees it should just be a couple cloud engineers and two tech support people" real companies need real headcount for all sorts of non-technical things.

          Perhaps cutting the company in half with zero deep research and then exposing it to all sorts of legal jeopardy was the final straw for these folks.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 11:08 AM

        This article lays it out pretty well:

        https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23451198/twitter-ftc-elon-musk-lawyer-changes-fine-warning

        Here’s my favorite part:

        Musk’s new legal department is now asking engineers to “self-certify” compliance with FTC rules and other privacy laws, according to the lawyer’s note and another employee familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to speak without the company’s permission.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 11:16 AM

          That sounds like a good reason to quit..I wouldn't want to be held personally responsible for failure to comply with FTC rules and privacy laws.

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 11:54 AM

            That's like asking a lawyer to start writing code. It's completely outside of your job scope. This whole situation is beyond absurd.

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 3:37 PM

            None of the existing employees signed a contract signing up for this. Also, the employees aren't lawyers -- this shit won't hold up in court.

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 3:53 PM

            You couldn't and wouldn't if the company told you to do shit like that.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 11:26 AM

          Uh, hell no. There's no way I'd put my name on shit.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 11:17 AM

        Nintendo of America and mario middle finger was pretty hilarious. And he wonders why advertisers are dropping?

        Anyone can imitate anyone as of yesterday with the release of twitter blue.

        https://twitter.com/themattprov/status/1590476929294946304?s=46&t=Ia7G4bZAEaB-tBU6PrOmyg

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 11:18 AM

          well you see the spammers will run out of $8 very quickly

          i am very smart

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 11:23 AM

            The scary part is how easily this can and will be be manipulated by a malicious actor during election time and for all sorts of schemes.

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 12:31 PM

            I am the master strategist.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 11:33 AM

        And Tesla basically canceled their solar division lol. Hope no one ordered that. https://electrek.co/2022/11/10/tesla-cancels-solar-projects-scales-back-division/amp/

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 11:36 AM

          what the fuck, that's... not a good tangential meltdown. elon's moronic twitter tirades should be insulated from tesla, that actually does something good and offers something good

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 11:43 AM

            [deleted]

            • reply
              November 10, 2022 12:01 PM

              from what I understand, it's not "tesla tech" really at risk in the model 3 corner cutting, it's shit like zip ties and shit DIY corner cutting on the assembly like because they literally ran out of components to complete the cars. so your seats might fall apart and your bumper will come disconnected but the "tesla shit" should be OK. at least how I understand it.

              now, the software behind autodrive is a whole separate matter... that's not related to build quality whatsoever but could be still under "corner cutting" but that would be a WHOOOOOLEEEE separate discussion because that's pioneering destination based super advanced shit that has not existed before, ever.

              model 3 door hinges and windows not being installed with the proper components, yea that's pretty fucked for sure. that's corner cutting without question.

        • reply
          November 11, 2022 5:36 AM

          As someone with a solar roof, I'm not thrilled to see this.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 11:41 AM

        Last night’s rollout of a new policy in which Twitter users could purchase “blue check” verifications for $8 a month uncorked a wave of bogus accounts, each bearing a blue “verified” check, impersonating a swath of public figures — Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, Joe Biden.

        Many have been taken down, but with half its workforce laid off, the company has struggled to contain them.


        https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/10/fake-account-chaos-engulfs-musks-twitter-00066217

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 11:47 AM

        Good read here about the risks he’s taking and the consequences at a cyber security level and others.

        https://twitter.com/briannawu/status/1590754422929653761?s=46&t=Ia7G4bZAEaB-tBU6PrOmyg

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 11:50 AM

        If Elon destroys twitter I have a feeling the secondary effects on Tesla are going to end up costing him a lot more than just 40 billion.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 11:55 AM

          Given how much of the trust in his company’s success is trust in Elon himself he is certainly not helping things with how much he’s showing his ass here

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 12:01 PM

          He’s gonna have to sell a bunch more TSLA if he can’t figure out how to make Twitter a viable business. Wonder what his lenders are thinking right now

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 12:06 PM

          I overheard someone saying impatiently that their Tesla got delayed and Musk needs to stop buying twitter and get them their car.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 12:54 PM

          A friend of mine who's already a Tesla owner was saying this morning he hopes the fallout from his Twitter fuckup will make him either be ousted from or have to sell his majority interest in Tesla so that he can keep buying Tesla cars in the future without having to support Musk at all.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 1:31 PM

          God I hope so. I'd love to see someone so rich actually see consequences for their fuckups.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 10:55 PM

          Yup. The fallout could absolutely affect perceptions of Tesla and its stock price for the worse.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 12:14 PM

        This is fucked up - https://twitter.com/EliLiIlyandCo/status/1590775525487906857

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 12:18 PM

          Fucked up and also the end of Twitter brand safety.

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 12:33 PM

            move fast and break things! get dat recurring revenue ASAP! then fire everyone! what could possibly go wrong

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              November 10, 2022 12:36 PM

              it will get so much worse https://imgur.com/gallery/z1JOB3Z

            • reply
              November 10, 2022 12:56 PM

              Yeah, but if your "move fast" initiative is to introduce a new feature that will be rampantly abused, while at the same time making sweeping layoffs that will make moderation overly difficult (both algorithmic/engineering driven moderation and just warm body moderation) you aren't really embracing an agile design approach, you're just a complete fucking moron.

              • reply
                November 10, 2022 1:13 PM

                no one even had time to ponder if it would be rampantly abused. this is a *perfect* case study from management/ownership saying DEPLOY THE THING, IMMEDIATELY, IT IS WHAT WE NEED and refusing to go through proper rollout procedures.

                no one there even considered abuse
                no one there even considered moderation
                no one there even considered algorithm impacts
                no one there even knows what agile design is

                it boils down to that last part. complete fucking moron.

                IT GETS US MONEY, SO DO IT NOW OR BE FIRED. that was the extent of the concept/development/testing/rollout scheme.

                • reply
                  November 10, 2022 1:19 PM

                  I agree this is a great example of an ignorant and overly confident executive/manager pushing a feature too quickly. But it's ALSO an example of an ignorant and overly confident executive/manager not listening to the immediate pushback and criticism. Both failures are not mutually exclusive.

                  The problem is, I assume Musk is someone who is accustomed to surrounding himself with yes men and doesn't tolerate any type of pushback and wants people with a "can do" attitude.

                  I guarantee there were people who were telling him EXACLTY why this rollout of the monetized blue checkmarks was going to be prone to rampant abuse, and I'm sure his response was along the lines of "figure it out, I don't want problems, I want solutions".

                  There's many, many failures that seemingly all lie at the feet of Musk on this one.

                • reply
                  November 10, 2022 1:28 PM

                  Everyone considered all those things. It’s why Twitter verification that already existed didn’t work this way. Elon just fired everyone who told him what he didn’t want to hear. It doesn’t even get them money. It’s literally costing them money in lost ad revenue per Blue subscriber.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 12:21 PM

          Everyone knew this would happen the moment he described the feature

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 1:22 PM

          Hahaahha

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 5:08 PM

          Removed. What was it?

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 5:16 PM

          We apologize to those who were have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account about the cost of diabetic care. Humalog is now $400. We can do this whenever we want and there's nothing you can do about it. Suck it. Our official Twitter account is @LiIlyPadCo.

          https://twitter.com/LiIlyPadCo/status/1590842239349293059

          It is very funny watching Elon learn what happens when the trolls aren't on his side.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 12:37 PM

        "There's a horse in the hospital! And it owns Twitter!"

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 1:23 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 1:28 PM

          [deleted]

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 1:42 PM

          He told you he was hardcore.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 1:52 PM

          I have a question? If he liked the product enough to buy it, why did he fire the people who made it and kept it running? Why so many changes, and why the warning of mistakes to come? Didn't you have an idea of what you were spending your money for? Or was this a bad joke you got trapped into? Do you think you're rich enough to survive the failure of Twitter now that you are it's sole owner and decision-maker?

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 2:02 PM

            He’s the dog that finally caught the car man

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 2:05 PM

          I subconsciously read that in the voice of Egg Head from Disco Elysium.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 7:58 PM

          Ah the good old vibes-driven leadership method

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 1:31 PM

        ELON is doing this to 🔥destroy🔥 Twitter on purpose, because it’s bad for humanity. You can’t just take something away that’s working, otherwise people would revolt. So he’s tanking it on purpose. He’s secretly a saint! 😇 👼 He’s our savior! ✝️✝️

        Oh Elon, you absolute genius. Next up solving climate change!

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 4:56 PM

          When people are playjng Chess he's playing Hungry Hungry Hippos

          • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
            reply
            November 10, 2022 7:09 PM

            What the fuck can a chess piece do against a hungry hippo?

            • reply
              November 10, 2022 7:42 PM

              Only a pocket travel size chess piece (perhaps a very small scale pawn from a normal chess set) will fit under a Hungry Hippos mouth-shovel, and even that won't go through to the bin.
              Do not ask how I know this. You can clearly imagine how I know this.

        • reply
          November 11, 2022 7:44 AM

          If this is how he solves Twitter, I really REALLY don't want to see his solution to climate change.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 1:36 PM

        let's say that musk didn't buy twitter initially, and backed out of the deal, how much money would he have been on the hook for at that point? It surely was less than whatever he's spending to tank twitter right now.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 1:39 PM

          Given the damage he's doing to the rest of his brands... almost surely.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 2:07 PM

          I read there was a $1bn breakup fee floated at some point.

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 2:28 PM

            lol, wow. huge amount, but compared to what he's lost in a week, that's nothing.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 3:56 PM

          there was a $1B fee on him for walking away as part of the initial paperwork where he waived due diligence. He definitely should have just paid it and walked away

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 1:39 PM

        Elon not ruling out bankruptcy per Bloomberg just now.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 1:49 PM

        I’m truly surprised how quickly Twitter has gone off the rails.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 1:51 PM

          But... he made that wacky joke with the sink the first day! How could it have gone so wrong after that?

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 2:03 PM

            He was telling us all along he was sinking Twitter. We didn’t listen.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 1:52 PM

          [deleted]

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 1:54 PM

          and it was gonna be an "everything" app loooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 8:00 PM

            "X" is his timecube-level fixation, since before Paypal

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 1:54 PM

        So actual real talk, is Musk intentionally trying to bankrupt or destroy Twitter, for some purpose or aim?

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 2:03 PM

          [deleted]

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 3:14 PM

            This 100%

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 5:57 PM

            Yep. In all of this he’s just exposing how much of a fraud he is. He was never a great leader.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 2:35 PM

          Keep in mind most of his big profile business achievements of the last decade have been built upon him buying new startups in emerging markets where it was easy to drum up a lot of hype and financial support because there wasn't much public insight and scrutiny on the companies until Musk put them in the spotlight to hype them up.

          With Twitter, this was a well established brand and company that was arguably one of the biggest and most influence social networks out there, with plenty of past public scrutiny both from the media and governments.

          To me it seems like he probably thought he could bullshit his way into hyping up revenue for Twitter like he has for his previous companies. But the issue is that it's such a huge company with massive expenditures and customer loyalty that he can't just "pitch job" his way into success. I mean, in a way I'm sure that was part of his ability to secure the additional funding he needed for the $44b initial purchase.

          But he can't just say he's changing the world with his Twitter acquisition when arguably Twitter has already passed it's world-changing apex and was already a company struggling with how to monetize the momentum.

          I love seeing Musk completely fuck this up. I think suggesting Musk had some grand plan in place is giving him way too much credit. He was overly confident and riding the wave of decades of venture capitalist fueled growth convincing himself that he was some business genius, and now he's failing in the spotlight. It's glorious.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 3:37 PM

          he's just doing the same thing lots of billionaires do when they buy a sports team and horribly mismanage it into decades of failure because their old business success doesn't translate to sports. The difference is sports has a free monopoly so even the worst management failures still net you billions in profit.

          His perception of Twitter's problems were wildly warped by his personal experience as a celebrity (his mentions are a disaster of scammers) and his right wing circle of idiots (David Sacks et al) who think people on Twitter actually believe blue checks are status symbols and wokeness is destroying the country which can be stopped by Twitter.

          • reply
            November 10, 2022 8:04 PM

            I like to believe Musk is going to Thiel for advice, sorta looking up to him, and Thiel is nodding his head at Musk's idea, pushing him forward, but internally laughing because he knows it's going to crash and burn.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 4:28 PM

          so D.Trumps platform (is it still running?) is the only one?

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 7:44 PM

          Remember all the talk about Donald Trump being the deep mole destroying the Republican Party from within?
          This Musk idea is about the same likelihood.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 1:55 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 3:59 PM

          you don;t think this already happening at a incredibly fast pace??

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 1:57 PM

        Shackpoll

        Who did a better job?

        Versus Battle Round 1

        Elon Musk running Twitter
        vs
        Joseph Hazelwood, captain of the Exxon Valdez

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 6:47 PM

          Versus Battle Round 2

          Elon Musk running Twitter
          Vs
          General Custer commanding the 7th Cavalry at Little Big Horn

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 2:02 PM

        Community Notes is now open to US tweeters

        https://twitter.github.io/communitynotes/signing-up/

    • reply
      November 10, 2022 2:09 PM

      He’s learning from Trump.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 2:33 PM

        stable genius. man. woman. TV. fire half the company. be more hardcore.

    • reply
      November 10, 2022 2:47 PM

      Isn’t bankruptcy able to be manipulated by republicans and stuff to basically let them off the hook for paying debts and fines or something like that? Does it necessarily mean they shutter?

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 3:59 PM

        If he hadn't completely gone full retard he could have absolutely gotten cash-flow positive and then made the company take out a ton of debt while siphoning out for himself and walk away. standard private equity model.

    • reply
      November 10, 2022 4:42 PM

      Does Elon have a plan or a mental illness?

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 4:44 PM

        whynotboth

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 5:26 PM

        Yes

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 7:26 PM

        All humans have neurotic tendencies. The difference with Musk vs you and me is that not everyone is a billionaire.

        He is essentially running around real life GTA with a money cheat.

        “What happens if I do this? Lmao. Oh heh. Oh well.”

    • reply
      November 10, 2022 5:14 PM

      I do get a kick out of folks thinking that twiter was this bastion of normalcy before Musk came along to hurry up it's demise.

    • reply
      November 10, 2022 6:01 PM

      https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1590884973535711232?s=46&t=Z3R8m5wumuzIzxdf1GtSPQ

      Just making up the rules as they go. Like it’s some playground game and not a company with 250m daily active users.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 8:02 PM

        I still don’t see how this stops intentional trolling/abuse? Twitter has already been banning accounts intentionally trolling even if they have parody in the bio. So is this just clarifying the rules for people who are trying to cry fowl about accounts being banned?

        There’s still nothing to stop people from buying blue check marks and changing their names and trolling Twitter until however long it takes to get banned. This won’t stop the most common trolling going on right now.

      • reply
        November 11, 2022 12:51 AM

        He should add 'parody' to his own account.

      • reply
        November 11, 2022 4:42 AM

        He’s running the company like a game of Calvinball.

    • reply
      November 10, 2022 6:02 PM

      So how is Musk going to manage to get the Govt to subsidize Twitter so he can minimize his loss? You know he's trying to work it out.

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 6:14 PM

        Honestly he’s flying by the seat of his pants and seems to have no plan in what’s next.

        • reply
          November 10, 2022 7:08 PM

          If anything good happens, take credit. If anything bad happens, blame left wing activists.

    • reply
      November 10, 2022 7:34 PM

      twitter $8 to troll until you get suspended is the return of the somethingawful 10bux ban speedrun

      • reply
        November 10, 2022 8:07 PM

        Are you kidding me

      • reply
        November 11, 2022 3:08 AM

        lol its so fucking dumb and shortsighted, how could he/they not have realised they needed to be 2 very different things.

        • reply
          November 11, 2022 4:02 AM

          Because Musk is a prototypically bad senior manager who acts on the assumption that his gut feelings are more insightful & therefore correct than what hard data & shared insight from those around him would indicate.

    • reply
      November 10, 2022 8:24 PM

      Twitter AND crypto burning to the ground... 2022/2023 cant be all that bad....

    • reply
      November 10, 2022 9:28 PM

      Downloaded my data and deleted my account this morning.

    • reply
      November 11, 2022 7:01 AM

      The whole Twitter purchase may be at stake if this investor lawsuit (which has survived an initial dispute) over Tesla shares actually goes through (The suit was filed back in 2019 so predated any hint of Twitter)

      Basically, the suit challenges if Tesla actually met certain goals that would have allowed Musk to buy Tesla stock at a steep discount, which is estimated to now be worth $56b - that covers the $44b he paid for Twitter.

      https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musk-braces-56-bln-battle-with-heavy-metal-drummer-2022-11-11/

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