Musk at helm, Twitter readies for big revamp, including layoffs

With the world's richest man Elon Musk at the helm, Twitter is all set for changes he had promised to make it the world's best digital “town square” to discuss and nurture great ideas. Before that happens, Musk is planning layoffs across departments, as some reports suggest, ahead of the final date of the stock grants disbursement to the employees.

The churning could begin at the earliest and top managers have been asked to make a list of employees who'll face the axe, a global media news daily reported. Notably, stock grants comprise a significant portion of Twitter employees’ overall pay, though he's bound to pay them in cash if not in stocks.

The mega-billionaire is also reportedly planning to cut Twitter's workforce by about 50%. As of now, Twitter has around 7,500 employees. Even before the deal with Musk in April, Twitter had reportedly planned to initiate some cost-saving plans, including layoffs, which were then put on hold in light of the takeover agreement with Musk. The company is eying to reduce its overall cost and employee payroll by about $800 million by 2023. 

Twitter's new owner has, meanwhile, denied reports about layoffs, saying it's "false". He was replying to a Twitter user who asked if the news was true. "This is false."

The Tesla CEO had already fired the top brass at the microblogging platform, including CEO Parag Agrawal, policy chief Vijaya Gadde, and CFO Ned Segal, a day after closing the much-awaited $44-billion deal. However, the company is yet to come out with an official statement on this. Parag Agrawal's Twitter bio still shows him as the CEO of the company.

Musk, who's a prolific Twitter user, is constantly seeking advice on the platform to make it better. In a recent tweet, he said the company will soon revise its user verification process. "Whole verification process is being revamped right now," he said. Besides, Twitter's Blue Tick may come at a cost now, with the billionaire planning to charge $4.99 a month for this facility. 

The company’s Twitter Blue feature was launched in June 2021, its first-ever subscription offering. Subscribers get access to several unique features, and perks, such as customisable app icons for the device’s home screen and fun colour themes for their Twitter app. 

Meanwhile, as Musk takes over Twitter with a promise of making it the best place to discuss ideas, the company's head of safety & integrity Yoel Roth has said a large number of tweets are flooding the platform with slurs and derogatory remarks in the past two days. "Over the last 48 hours, we’ve seen a small number of accounts post a ton of Tweets that include slurs and other derogatory terms. To give you a sense of scale: More than 50,000 Tweets repeatedly using a particular slur came from just 300 accounts."

He said nearly all of these accounts are inauthentic. "We’ve taken action to ban the users involved in this trolling campaign — and are going to continue working to address this in the days to come to make Twitter safe and welcoming for everyone."

To ensure the right kind of content is published on the platform, Twitter's new boss had last week said that “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints." All major decisions with regard to content and account reinstatements will be done by the council, he said.