Webdesk: Twitter Inc. CEO Elon Musk said the social media business is “roughly breaking even” following significant layoffs and most advertisers returning.
Musk told BBC in a live Twitter Spaces interview that Twitter now has 1,500 employees. It is down from “just under 8,000 staff members” before he took charge in October.
Since Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, numerous engineers who fix and prevent service disruptions have been laid off. It is according to the sources who told Reuters, creating turmoil and uncertainty.
NetBlocks said that Twitter had its sixth major outage of the year last week, preventing thousands of users from accessing links.
Musk acknowledged issues, including recent outages, but they were brief.
He claims Twitter’s massive layoffs were necessary due to a $3 billion cash flow deficit.
“We could be cash-flow positive this quarter if things go well,” he said in the interview that drew over 3 million listeners, adding that the company has record user numbers.
Since his acquisition, Twitter advertising has plummeted.
Musk said ad spending was cyclical and “political.” On Wednesday, most of its advertisers returned.
The billionaire, who also runs Tesla and SpaceX, claimed he had no successor for Twitter CEO.
Musk has been criticised by Tesla investors for spending too much time on Twitter and had previously indicated the end of the year would be “good timing” to choose a new CEO.
