SOCIAL
Musk Plans Massive Staff Cuts at Twitter, Jokes About Merging with ‘Free Speech’ Social Networks

It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for the latest episode of ‘What’s Happening in the Elon Musk/Twitter takeover?’
And if you’re a Twitter employee, this week’s news is not great.
As per The Washington Post:
“Musk told prospective investors in his deal to buy the company that he planned to get rid of nearly 75 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 workers, whittling the company down to a skeleton staff of just over 2,000.”
Musk’s planned staff cuts have been well-documented – back in May, as part of a leaked overview that Musk had sent to potential investors, it was reported that Musk was looking to cut around 1,000 staff on day one, before eventually adding back over 2,700 employees by 2025, in line with platform growth.
Nobody knows how, exactly, Musk plans to stimulate that growth, and I’m not convinced Elon does either, but his perspective, at present, seems to be that Twitter is bloated, costly and underachieving.
Musk actually summarized such himself, when he was questioned about the Twitter deal in Tesla’s third quarter earnings call earlier in the week:
“I think it’s [a massive asset] that’s sort of languished for a long time, but has an incredible potential.”
Musk also noted that he and his fellow investors are ‘obviously overpaying’ for the app. But even so, he’s excited for what comes next:
“The long-term potential for Twitter, in my view, is an order of magnitude greater than its current value.”
That sure sounds like someone who’s ready to pay up and take over at the app – though the deal is still not technically finalized at the time of writing.
Either way, significant concerns still linger around Musk’s grand Twitter plan – especially when he’s tweeting out memes like this:
Musk later deleted the tweet – and of course, as various people who’ve dealt with Musk have noted, his Twitter persona and actual real-life approach are very different. But still.
He also posted, then deleted, this:

Kanye – or ‘Ye’ as he now prefers – moved to acquire free speech social network Parler this week, and the fact that Elon’s even joking about merging these apps seems to not be a great sign for Twitter’s future, especially if he’s going to, you know, get rid of all the staff that would theoretically take care of the moderation concerns that are likely to emerge as a result of any related shift in approach.
Really, it’s not possible to separate fact from fiction in the Elon Musk/Twitter stakes, because we have no way of knowing what Musk’s plans are for the app, outside of the vague notes and pointers that he’s offered along the way.
Though again, this seems likely to be the most significant point of contention, and does appear to align with Musk’s actual approach.
By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.
I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.
If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.
Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2022
We’ll have to wait and see, but cutting 75% of staff, while simultaneously opening up the ‘free speech’ gates? That could see things get very messy, very fast in the Twitter-sphere.
On another front, Musk has reassured ‘3-time bee sting survivor’ Dave Portnoy that he does indeed intend to tackle the platform’s bot issues.
He also shared this random thought, apropos of nothing:
I will not let you down, no matter what it takes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2022
That’s not part of a longer thread, or a reply that I’ve chosen not to embed. It was just a single tweet, a note to the world, maybe.
So, what comes next for Twitter?
Well, it seems like staff cuts are inevitable, and the impacts of that will be impossible to predict – though I don’t think that Musk knows for sure what the actual number of cuts he’s going to make will be as yet.
Maybe the suggestion of 75% cuts is a means to give those who are already considering leaving the company a little push, in order to avoid future payouts – or maybe Elon is indeed going to go department-by-department on the first day, laying people off as he goes.
And I think that’s it for the Musk/Twitter update this week. Oh, also, Musk’s Twitter purchase could be under National Security review, which could still derail the whole thing. Yeah, that too.
The chaos rolls on.
SOCIAL
Musk regrets controversial post but won’t bow to advertiser ‘blackmail’

Elon Musk’s comments at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Slaven Vlasic
Elon Musk apologized Wednesday for endorsing a social media post widely seen as anti-Semitic, but accused advertisers who are turning away from his social media platform X of “blackmail” and said anyone who does so can “go fuck yourself.”
The remark before corporate executives at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence.
Earlier, Musk had apologized for what he called “literally the worst and dumbest post that I’ve ever done.”
In a comment on X, formerly Twitter, Musk on November 15 called a post “the actual truth” that said Jewish communities advocated a “dialectical hatred against whites,” which was criticized as echoing longtime conspiracy theory among White supremacists.
The statement prompted a flood of departures from X of major advertisers, including Apple, Disney, Comcast and IBM who criticized Musk for anti-semitism.
“I’m sorry for that tweet or post,” Musk said Wednesday. “It was foolish of me.”
He told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin that his post had been misinterpreted and that he had sought to clarify the remark in subsequent posts to the thread.
But Musk also said he wouldn’t be beholden to pressure from advertisers.
“If somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money?” Musk said. “Go fuck yourself.”
But the billionaire acknowledged that there were business implications to the advertiser actions.
“If the company fails… it will fail because of an advertiser boycott” Musk said. “And that will be what will bankrupt the company.”
Musk, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit to Israel earlier this week, insisted in the interview that he holds no discrimination against Jews, calling himself “philo-Semitic,” or an admirer of Judaism.
During the interview, Musk wore a necklace given to him by a parent of an Israeli hostage taken in the Hamas attack on October 7. The necklace reads, “Bring Them Home.”
Musk told Sorkin that the Israel trip had been planned earlier and was not an “apology tour” related to the controversial tweet.
SOCIAL
TikTok Encourages Creators To Make Longer Videos, With Focus On Ad Revenue 11/30/2023

A new report by The Information shows the company’s recent efforts to convince
creators to put out longer videos in order to provide more room for ad placements.
According to the …
SOCIAL
X Adds Option To Embed Videos in Isolation From Posts

Next time you go to embed an X post, you may notice a new step:
Now, X will enable you to choose whether you want to embed the video element in isolation, or the whole post, as normal.
And if you do choose to embed just the video (or GIF), it’ll look like this:
Which could be a helpful way to present X-originated video on third-party websites, and add context to, say, your blog post, without the clutter of the full X framing.
But it could also reduce brand exposure for X, which is likely why Twitter didn’t enable this before, though it did once provide an “embedded video widget” which essentially served the same purpose.

Twitter gradually seemed to phase that out as the platform evolved, and there’s no specific reason that I can find as to why it removed it as an option. But either way, now, it’s back, so you have more options for using X-originated content, and putting more focus on video elements specifically.
Though I don’t know why they didn’t also take the opportunity to remove the ‘Tweet’ reference. Since the re-brand to X, the platform seems to have gone to little effort to weed out all the tweet and bird terminology, but then again, with 80% fewer staff, that’s probably understandable as well.
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