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.
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.
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.
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replyTJ Denzer posted a new article, Musk reportedly told Twitter staff that bankruptcy isn't out of the question at all-hands meeting
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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.”"-
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Elon can handle those. Don’t worry.
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It has been replaced by SpaceX automated landing ship software.
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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.
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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.“-
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.
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That's like asking a lawyer to start writing code. It's completely outside of your job scope. This whole situation is beyond absurd.
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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.
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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-
well you see the spammers will run out of $8 very quickly
i am very smart-
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.
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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/
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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.
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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 -
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-
The FCC didn’t announce they’re investigating though?
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that's not an investigation
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Pretty sure Twitter is under a strict consent order from the FTC for new products, so...yep:
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/10/does-twitter-have-any-employees-left-who-remember-that-the-company-is-under-a-strict-consent-decree-with-the-ftc/-
right but it's simply not true to say Twitter is under investigation by the FTC for their recent actions under Elon as far as I can tell
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A "Reminder you need to follow the rules and we're watching" tweet is just not at all the same as an actual investigation into suspected wrongdoing
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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
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I overheard someone saying impatiently that their Tesla got delayed and Musk needs to stop buying twitter and get them their car.
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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.
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This is fucked up - https://twitter.com/EliLiIlyandCo/status/1590775525487906857
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it will get so much worse https://imgur.com/gallery/z1JOB3Z
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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.
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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.-
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. -
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.
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Everyone knew this would happen the moment he described the feature
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Gonna be interesting to watch.
https://i.imgur.com/AnmfhvR.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/jJgRwVA.jpeg
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This thing is developing at lightspeed haha, every day its so much worse
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truly Trumpian stuff for sure
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Honestly, this is exactly what needs to happen. The feature was incredibly stupid from the moment he announced it, and this is hopefully the only way to either kill off the feature or kill Twitter if Musk refuses to budge.
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He thinks the types of people who were previously verified (ie journalists) are corrupt https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1590796536220639232
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just someone impersonating Eli Lily with a Twitter Blue sub saying insulin is free. The real Eli Lily account had to tweet to say it's not real since Twitter didn't remove it for hours.
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That tweet was up for at least 5 hours too if not longer.
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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.
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"There's a horse in the hospital! And it owns Twitter!"
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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?
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I subconsciously read that in the voice of Egg Head from Disco Elysium.
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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!-
When people are playjng Chess he's playing Hungry Hungry Hippos
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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.
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I read there was a $1bn breakup fee floated at some point.
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lol, wow. huge amount, but compared to what he's lost in a week, that's nothing.
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If my boss/owner was threatening bankruptcy I would be spending my workdays lining up a new job.. And not giving a single fuck about the Twitter job.
Elon got away with being a fucking bully with his car company but not so much here. 44 BILLION dollars, what an absolute waste of an ungodly amount of money nobody on Earth should have in the first place.
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I’m truly surprised how quickly Twitter has gone off the rails.
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This 100%
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Yep. In all of this he’s just exposing how much of a fraud he is. He was never a great leader.
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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. -
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.
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Community Notes is now open to US tweeters
https://twitter.github.io/communitynotes/signing-up/
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It's the Trump Steaks of social media
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whynotboth
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Twitter was nowhere near imminent death before Elon arrived
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Well the new $8 deal was working out pretty good. https://gizmodo.com/twitter-elon-musk-verified-impersonators-checkmark-1849768462
https://www.engadget.com/twitter-blocks-new-accounts-twitter-blue-114446338.html
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Mark Cuban is beefing with him saying he destroyed Twitter's greatest asset - verified accounts, so you could trust the information from them (in general).
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And last week, Cuban was praising musk for the acquisition lol. How quickly it turns.
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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.-
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.
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Honestly he’s flying by the seat of his pants and seems to have no plan in what’s next.
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Grey checkmark is back
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23452625/twitter-verified-official-blue-gray-check-
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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.
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Twitter AND crypto burning to the ground... 2022/2023 cant be all that bad....
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Looks like everybody's account will be deleted in a week or two, you coulda just waited
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I just did so as well.
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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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