Elon Musk Has A Ridiculous Expectation For Twitter
Elon Musk has not bought Twitter yet, but he already has some pretty ridiculous goals for the social platform.
This article is more than 2 years old
Has Elon Musk bought Twitter yet? No. Does he have eccentric and slightly ridiculous plans for Twitter? Of course, he does. Deadline reports that Musk wants to see at least a billion users on Twitter. The outlandish claim came about in a virtual town hall meeting that the SpaceX and Tesla founder held with Twitter employees ahead of a proposed takeover of the social media company.
To put Elon Musk and his outlandish targets for Twitter into perspective, the social media company reported that in the first quarter of 2022 the platform had approximately 229 million users. That is some way short of the billion user target that Musk has his sights set on. Other beguiling and/or concerning snippets to come out of Elon Musk’s conversation with Twitter employees revolve around staff cuts. When asked about staffing and if there could be potential layoffs, Musk responded by saying; “Right now, costs exceed revenue. That’s not a great situation.” That ominous message was just one strange piece of communication to come from Elon Musk, his response to a question surrounding content moderation was to avoid “boring content” and he went on to applaud the likes of TikTok and China’s WeChat for being enjoyable for users.
Another concern for Twitter employees was Elon Musk’s stance on remote working. Recently, Elon Musk has made some outlandish claims in relation to his company Tesla, when in a company memo he requested all staff to return to office-based working for 40 hours a week or consider their jobs gone, a move that has been widely panned by a number of other business executives. Naturally, Twitter employees wanted to know if Musk plans to have such a stance with Twitter (should he finally complete his purchase) and Musk acknowledged that the parameters are different in this case.
The Elon Musk Twitter saga has been nothing short of ridiculous ever since the billionaire (and perhaps soon-to-be trillionaire) had his offer accepted to buy the social media company. Elon Musk has since put the deal on hold as he is wary of bot accounts on the platform and has requested Twitter be upfront with data regarding the issue. Twitter has since called Musk’s bluff and will be inundating him with data for him to peruse. As well as this, Elon Musk’s SpaceX employees wrote an open letter to the company’s executives denouncing his problematic behavior, following claims of sexual misconduct.
It is clearly a turbulent time at Twitter, fuelled by speculation, controversy and uncertainty. Whether Elon Musk has put Twitter employees’ minds at ease following the virtual town hall meeting remains to be seen, but ridiculous user targets and ominous answers regarding staff layoffs will unlikely help the situation much and concern will likely be hanging in the air amongst the Twitter workforce. As well as this, the elephant in the room is still the fact that Elon Musk hasn’t even acquired Twitter yet. When, if ever, will the deal cross the finish line? GeoNews reports that the end is indeed in sight, with Twitter gearing up for a shareholder vote on the sale in August. There will undoubtedly be plenty of Elon MUsk news, Twitter-related or not, that will come to light in the interim period.
