Mass workforce reduction from 8,000 to 1,500 was not easy, says Elon Musk
2 min read . Updated: 12 Apr 2023, 01:48 PM IST
Premium- The departure of several engineers following Elon Musk's acquisition of the company has sparked concerns about the platform's stability
Billionaire Elon Musk said that cutting the workforce from under 8,000 at the time he bought the firm to about 1,500 had not been easy.
The BBC participated in a live interview on Twitter Spaces on Wednesday, following its recent objection to being labelled as "government-funded media" on its Twitter account. The British broadcaster contacted Twitter to assert its long-standing independence.
Musk admitted he did not fire everybody in person - saying, "It's not possible to talk with that many people face to face."
The departure of several engineers following Elon Musk's acquisition of the company has sparked concerns about the platform's stability
Musk acknowledged the occurrence of glitches, including site outages, but reassured us that the outages were brief and the site is currently functioning well.
Elon Musk confirmed that legacy-verified blue ticks on the platform will be removed from accounts by the end of next week.
Musk, who acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October last year, has described running the platform as "quite painful" and "a rollercoaster". He also mentioned that he would consider selling the company if he finds the right person to take it over.
"It's not been boring. It's been quite a rollercoaster," Musk said when asked about his time at Twitter so far. The Tesla CEO the situation has been "quite stressful over the last several months" but added that buying the company was the right thing to do.
"The workload means that I sometimes sleep in the office," said Mr Musk, adding that he has a spot on a couch in a library "that no one goes to".
Musk, who is currently ranked as the world's second richest person with an estimated personal fortune of nearly $190 billion, as per theForbes billionaires list, discussed this issue during the interview which was broadcasted on Twitter Spaces.