San Francisco, June 17 (IANS) Tech billionaire Elon Musk has told Twitter employees that the platform "needs to get healthy" financially and bring down costs, suggesting that job cuts are likely in store if his deal to buy the social media service goes through.
When asked about the possibility of layoffs during an internal Q&A, Musk said "Right now costs exceed revenue," citing employees, The Verge reported.
"That's not a great situation," he added.
The question of layoffs has been top of mind for Twitter's more than 7,000 employees since Musk first said he wanted to buy the company.
In an earlier meeting, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told employees that layoffs were not being planned "at this time". Though Musk did not explicitly say if there would be job cuts, his comments suggest the odds are high.
Meanwhile, he also said that employees doing "excellent" work should be allowed to continue working from home.
However, he clarified that he strongly prefers to work in person and would confirm with managers that remote employees were contributing positively to the company.
The response came during a virtual all-hands meeting with Twitter employees, during which the Tesla CEO addressed workers for the first time and answered pre-submitted questions, read by a Twitter executive.
The meeting comes amid Musk's $44 billion takeover attempt.
In a fresh SEC filing, Twitter shared a letter it received from Musk's legal team indicating displeasure with the company's offered information regarding the level of "spam and fake accounts" on its service, reports TechCrunch.
As per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk's net worth stands at $193 billion, as of May 25. This means that Musk had seen $77.6 billion of his wealth sheared off since the start of the year.
The Tesla CEO on Tuesday said that the $44 billion deal at $54.20 a share "cannot move forward" until the Twitter CEO Agrawal proves the actual bot numbers. While Twitter maintains it has less than 5 per cent fake/spammy accounts on its platform, Musk believes the number can be as high at 50 per cent, and wants Agrawal to come clean on this.
The world's first fully-operational airport for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and drone technology, the 'Air-One' in the city of Coventry is currently hosting demonstrator flights.
Twitter announced late on Monday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Musk for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at nearly $44 billion.
The University of British Columbia says in a news release that its spinoff company Carbin Minerals has been awarded a so-called XPrize for technology that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
