Multi-tasker Musk expects to reduce time at Twitter, seek another leader Elon Musk, disruptor extraordinaire of the social media platform he bought for $44 billion isn't planning to run Twitter permanently on a full-time basis and says a CEO will be hired. The world’s richest man – who is also CEO at Tesla and SpaceX – made the comments when he testified yesterday during a lawsuit brought by …
"The perfect candidate is....
one of his Robots. They will carry out every wish of their Master without question."
Not really. Any droid can do stupid things and set the whole building ablaze, like Chief Twat just did in 2 weeks.
But only real people can extinguish this mess ...
After the latest ultimatum the only people working at Twitter will be - masochists, visa workers and dead wood. I bet entire teams, critical teams with transferable skills will walk out the door. It only takes something critical to fail and nobody clueful about how to fix it and big chunks of Twitter will cease working.
After the latest ultimatum the only people working at Twitter will be - masochists, visa workers and dead wood.
And, as was pointed out in another piece - people reliant on things like healthcare. One example was given of a staffer whose spouse is undergoing chemo. Since the US is incapable of providing socialised healthcare, there's no way that person is leaving Twitter until their spouse completes treatment, and/or they get an offer from a company that will pick up the ongoing treatment on their corporate health plan.
There are likely to be a bunch of people clinging on, who are trapped for reasons of insurance (or more commonly as you say, visas).
Since 2017 if you are on an H1B visa, you get 60 days grace if you lose your job to try to get another one, or to sort things out before you leave the US. So you wouldn't get deported immediately. And I'm certain that any reputable company would have taken care to fully inform staff in that position of the true state of affairs.
(See for example https://redbus2us.com/h1b-grace-period-60-days-uscis-rule-job-loss-you-quit-h4-ead-faqs/ )
Musk mocked them, saying: “I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere.”
Was not sure if this was arrogance or stupidity, then realized it's a little from column A and a little from column B.
I killed my Twitter account this morning. I have no time for bullies.
Former employees of Twitter should form their own app. I'm sure a couple are already working on it. I'll be ready when it's ready. Until then, it's Pub O'Clock.
"All time zones. It's always between 9-5 somewhere in the world :-p"
I get the feeling that anybody with the background to take over the CEO post at Twitter isn't going to be one working 80hours per week. If they do at first, they may come to the conclusion that they'll never see the milestones met that bring them the real money in less than 5 years and will be out of the door like a rat up a drainpipe.
Is it because
(a) he's throwing out all their been bags and video games, and rearranging the furniture so he can sublet the unused space;
(b) Musk wants the space for a video gaming party with his friends; or
(c) their fancy door entrance system is broke and they fired the person who maintains it?
Soon... he will be last person standing.
With 50% laid off and 75% of those remaining not wanting to work 80+ hours a week for Lord Elon of Twatter, there are only those on H1B visas left.
Then... he locks everyone out until Monday.
It is already clear that they can't meet the regulatory rules in the EU for moderation. It can only be a matter of a short time before Brussels tells them to shut up shop permanently.
Elon is showing the world how not to organise a piss-up in a brewery. His cred is going down the drain just like the Tesla stock price.
Being such a basic service; besides the moderators, which is a labour intensive job, what do all these other employees do? I understand that scale implies more people, but still.
This is a genuine question coming from ignorance. I have never been involved in projects with that many users and I am not a twiddler myself. I do understand Microsoft, Google and Apple that actually delivers services and products, but these social media platforms doesn't really seem to provide anything that has any complexity to it. Is it just marketing and engineering how to exploit user data, or am I missing something?
@mr.K I don't know twitter or it's inner workings but my guess is;
- maintaining/updating apps for the vatious platforms it runs on
- running the infrastructure which the apps connect to (making sure their AWS instances or servers in various countries are working)
- tweaking their algorithm (so everyone sees pro/anti Trump tweets at twitter's preferred rate)
- staff to convince every android OEM to make twitter a "system" app
Follow the money. Twitter's main revenue stream was advertising. So some of the jobs were:
1) Convince advertisers that Twitter is a cost effective place to advertise.
2) Administer the purchase and ensure that adverts are placed if and only if the customer can and will pay up.
3) Reject adverts for scams so bad they would get Twitter into trouble.
4) Collect/create evidence that adverts lead to sales.
5) Reduce the amount of hate speech to a point that is acceptable to advertisers.
6) Make an advertising purchase more cost effective than a third party spambot purchase.
Elon thinks advertisers are a problematic revenue source because they halt spending in response to certain kinds of free speech. From his view point, getting rid of all of the above is a good idea.
The next round of hilarity has turned up (WARNING: link is to a site whose contributors chug Elon flavoured koolade). Apparently Musk is terrified employees are going to sabotage the company.
Apparently Musk is terrified employees are going to sabotage the company
What would sabotage mean in this context? As Musk is trying its hardest, and succeeding, to bury Twitter under feet of gravel -and I, for one, share his objective to nuke the platform-, does it mean that he fears employees could make run Twitter as before his takeover?
"Elon thinks advertisers are a problematic revenue source because they halt spending in response to certain kinds of free speech."
In this, he is correct. Example, Amazon would not want to advertise unless pro-union speech was downplayed. The only speech a platform aiming to be a public soapbox should be censoring is speech that is breaking the law, in which case it should be taken down and referred to the relevant authorities. Speech promoting a viewpoint should never be censored if it's not breaking any laws.
Twitter would be like any big IT company they'll have
- HR, accountants, receptionists, building maintenance etc.
- Legal / Compliance
- Developers for front facing stuff, infrastructure, tools, metrics, reporting, ad delivery
- QA testers
- Devops who support development - source control etc.
- IT who run the internal networks and provide computer equipment, shiny kit
- Software release engineers - people who roll out the new software
- Operations who keep everything going 24/7
- Translators / localization
- Regional teams who deal with various legal & privacy issues
- Moderators who respond to reports & abuse
- Advertising & Marketing who engage with advertisers, run campaigns. I expect some of the bigger customers even had dedicated mini teams just to service them.
- Security who protect the networks, ensure apps meet security guidelines
- Liasons for police / secret services
etc.
Probably missing some off the list but it's a huge service and it needs the staff. If you Thanos snap the staff and then expect the remainder to leave or work like dogs it will cut through this list like a scythe. Entire teams - important teams - will walk out the door. It won't be long before there is an outage or a major issue and there won't be there who has any knowledge of how to fix it.
"Advertising & Marketing who engage with advertisers, run campaigns. I expect some of the bigger customers even had dedicated mini teams just to service them." [my emphasis]
I had always assumed that there was an element of that sort of servicing going on in the sleazy worlds of marketing and advertising. I mean, it would go a looong way to explaining how the "impartial, non-commercial" BBC totally wanked itself into a frenzy in a very non-impartial way over Facebook, Twitter, etc, when those services started up (with not the barest mention of "Other internet services are available")…
" Entire teams - important teams - will walk out the door. "
If a team has been gutted and then a few quit on their own hook and 5% of the staff remain, they'd be crazy to stick around. The "Sacrifice your life on the Twitter alter" ultimatum that gave those people the 90 days of severance too without being laid off was very nice of Elon. You know that if you are one of three people left in a group that had 50 people just a couple of weeks ago, your life is going to be very unfun. It wouldn't matter how talented, dedicated and a huge fan of Elon to boot that you could make up the workload at 90hours/week. Even if you got a limited edition T-shirt as a bonus.
With a former British Deputy PM doing sterling work helping Zuckerberg at Meta, Musk could do even better by giving the job to a former British PM.
He's spoilt for choice between Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
After all, if they can run a country and manage a budget of hundreds of billions, a workforce of tens of millions, running Twitter is a walk in the park
where's the sarcasm icon
Ahem. Both are backbench MPs who I am sure are devoting their full time and energy to helping their constituents (Uxbridge and South Ruislip for Johnson, South West Norfolk for Truss). As for the reports that Boris went on holiday in the Dominican Republic while Parliament was in session, the week after spending a few days in the US meeting Rupert Murdoch (not one of his constituents), and then speaking to a meeting of the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers in Colorado Springs (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63668626 ), this must be helping the people of Uxbridge and South Ruislip in a manner I don't fully appreciate. I'm sure they do though.
This makes perfect sense. If you were offered that either Boris would help you in any way he could, putting all his talents to work, or that he pissed off and left you alone, which would you consider most helpful?
Now, if one was a pig farmer short of feed there might be an opening for either one of them...
One is never short of feed for hogs. Everybody has a pasture that needs clearing and fertilizing. Goats and/or sheep might make it look prettier short-term, but the hogs will also turn the ground up and work the nutrients in for you, making it more useful in the long run.
Besides, who wants politician fed bacon? Wast of good food, that.
Don't forget that he's doing a wonderful job of running Truth Social. After all, they don't have any premises and their HQ is a PO Box.
This seems to be the model that Elon is following after all, isn't he now a Trumper? He did say 'Vote Republican' just before the recent elections.
The only major restructuring work that can be completed in two weeks tends to involve demolition experts and explosives.
Firing half the staff, then telling those who remain to work twice as many hours isn't really building a new structure, it's just drastically weakening the old one. I'm guessing he's planning to "step away" with just enough time left to let the new manager plausibly take the blame for the failure of the whole venture.
Careful, it sounds like you're getting dangerously close to exposing his genius, super-secret plan. Thankfully you didn't give the GPS location of his volcano lair, so you'll probably be safe. But I'd get nervous if a black Tesla started following me, if I were you.
"But I'd get nervous if a black Tesla started following me, if I were you."
I was under the impression that if you wanted any other "color" than black or white, it was a special order (more money, longer wait time). That makes a black Tesla very common. Besides, it's the full-size black SUV's that are the big worry. An armed thug doesn't like how hard it is to get out of a Tesla in full kit.
>making people walk is cheap.
In this case it's looking very expensive.
By end of day, here on the west coast, rumours are 75% of the remaining workforce took the quit option before they stopped processing applications. All Twitter offices are apparently locked and all staff locked out of systems.
Twitter is still up, but bets are on it not lasting more than 0.1 Truss
"rumours are 75% of the remaining workforce took the quit option before they stopped processing applications"
Musk gave the impression it was more of an opt-in deal - presumably the staff processing the opt-ins didn't opt-in themselves. :)
Normally creating terrible workplace conditions so people just quit is much cheaper than paying redundancy, but genuis CEO Elon offered everyone at the company the option of taking the redunancy payment. And he made it an opt-out choice too (everyone who _didn't_ sign up got the payout to leave)
Personally, I'm hoping it will soon become just a historical footnote. But, much as I dislike the antics, I suspect Musk knows exactly what he's doing, If he can bankrupt the company, he will probably be able to walk away from his debts. Bankruptcy might become inevitable if revenue declines and key workers have left the company on their own.
"If he can bankrupt the company, he will probably be able to walk away from his debts."
When it gets into the billions, there is another system that makes sure the responsible party takes "full responsibility" for the debts. Aside from having to live aboard a plane that keeps moving like that guy in Contact, Elon would lose his position at Tesla and access to any banking whatsoever for any enterprise he's involved with for the rest of his very short life. There are breakpoints where the sums involved are backed up with more than tangible security. In the billons range, banks are much like the way the devil is portrayed but a lot less patient about collecting.
"As he's got so many children anyone would think he'd be promoting family friendly policies."
He only seems to be interested in being there at the beginning of the process.
That has me thinking.... with so many fans in the world, some of which are women, he might be able to finance a few more activities by selling "genetic material" to those thinking that his "genius" might be hereditary. Mr Dent traveled the universe in first class that way.
Musk buys himself a mountain, stands at the peak and starts wildly lobbing (snow)[1]balls down. They hit the slopes and start gathering speed, getting more and more destructive as they go, crashing into anyone trying to live on the slopes - some get flung away, the rest are left battered and worried. All the guides that used to pay Musk so that they could use the slopes to sell to the touristst see what is coming and abandon the mountain.
Musk stands at the top, making snowmen and showing them off to the World ("This one is buy-a-blue-tick", "This one is called hardcore-software"). But the snowmen just topple down the slopes as well, increasing the mayhem below.
Hearing the rumbles getting louder, Musk finally looks down and notices that there is now an avalanche approaching the town in the foothills, but they haven't realised it yet. When it hits, the power will go out and all the townsfolk will be left in the dark, unable to find each other. And they will blame Musk, because they saw his snowmen.
Musk leaps into action, and does the only thing he can: he leaps into his helicopter, flies to the city and finds someone who will sit in his big chair on top of the mountain. Then, as the town disappears, Musk points up and shouts: "You see that man on top of the mountain? It is all his fault! I was over here, playing with my cars, when your lights all went out."
Either Musk is redefining the meaning of incompetence, or what he's doing is deliberate.
A small part of me considers a grumpy child being forced to play with a toy that he no longer wants, so the child throws it onto the floor in a tantrum and jumps on it so *nobody* can have it. Maybe this is Musk's plan? Maybe inside he's thinking "The next time I try and back out of a purchase, maybe they'll think twice before forcing the deal through".
Or maybe he's just incompetent. Place your bets!
"I want you all back in the office. No more working from home. I want you to all agree to this "new twitter" where you will work your arses off like I do, with no breaks so you can continue to make me more money. I'll be doing the same. I'll be working hard. Until I get bored, which is coming soon & I'll just hire someone to be my replacement cunt"
Now he's told the remaining people who aren't allowed to work from home and have their building access disabled until monday, to email him a list of their commits over the past 6 months, to send him 10 screenshots of code, and turn up at 2pm.
The only people left at this point will be visa holders dancing to his merry tune and hoping they get that job offer soon.
> visa holders dancing to his merry tune
Well, at least one of the (I presume) pro-Elon (or glorious sarcasm) responses agrees, although it seems modern dance rather than old-fashioned ballet:
>>He is looking for coding athletes
Do you think anyone who can say that has *any* idea what programmimg entails? This same twitterer also clearly understands the advantages of Stockholm syndrome:
>>He is looking for mindset alignment
https://nitter.net/RLCJR1962/status/1593796351552266241
I worry how the Muskovites are going to cope once reality hits them.
All the remaining ordinary workers at Twitter are expected to work long hours at high intensity pretty much indefinately ... but the Boss (in his ultimate magnificence) is going to cut back his own hours after working his thumbs to the bone, futzing around with the company for a couple weeks?
Now THERE'S a business I could get behind!
Why? When has the CEO of a large firm ever actually suffered for their mistakes at the helm?
You take the job, collect the money, walk away from the collapse. Apparently there's no shortage of available positions afterward, to judge by any number of colossal failures.
Watching this play out in the media has been a fantastic advert for literally any other electric car that isn't Tesla. If his approach to engineering here doesn't make you question his approach at his other companies (not to mention, not wanting to support such a jerk either) then I don't know what will.
.. Musk worked so hard as he wants his victims personnel to work at Tesla and Space X he would have never found the time to use Twitter, let alone have the time to sign contracts he could not back out of.
If didn't have an ego the size of a planet he would have backed out of buying Twitter, but no, obviously he is "too smart" to let mere mortals do some due diligence and so proceeded to buy what he is now diligently turning into one of the biggest financial black holes since the collapse of FTX. FTX has the smell of financial shenanigans, but what is happening at Twitter is fully 100% the result of Musk's approach to what should only jokingly be referred to as "management".
The fun question is, of course, what throwing away $44B is going to do to Tesla and Space X. Apparently, Musk already had to fight off attempts to have himself removed as CEO at Tesla and I cannot imagine shareholders being very impressed with his currenct activities - if only because it demonstrates he's not terribly focused anymore on their investment.
Meanwhile, shares in popcorn keep on rising..
By the end of next week I wonder if Twitter will even be a thing. All the people with transferable & valuable skills are quitting by default (by not clicking the link agreeing to his ludicrous terms). Entire teams in some cases. There won't be anybody left with the competency and knowledge to even keep the service running.
When I read these things I try to look for the hidden picture.
Twitter is losing £4m a day.
Scrap the staff, keep only those required to keep the platform functioning and legal.
Boom Twitter returns to profit.
The cost ?
More people piling in on poor old Elon.
But he has shown he does not give a brown swirly.
Hand it over to someone to recruit and redefine the direction of Twitter after you have cleared the dead wood.
4D Chess, check mate.
Except:
- Twitter isn't being kept legal, and senior staff chose to quit because of it (see issue re FTC consent decree - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63593242)
- Many people, including industry experts and ex-Twitter staff, are openly wondering how long the platform will continue operating for without the staff to properly tend to it
- "Savings" from people being let go / quitting aren't actually enough to bring Twitter back to profit, especially given the extra $1B per year of debt payments Elon saddled it with
- Twitter's main source of revenue, advertisement, has been drying up as advertisers look to avoid the chaos that has happened in recent weeks. Furthermore, if Twitter's user base begins to dwindle (as sign-ups for other services like Mastodon indicate might be happening), then Twitter becomes even less of an attractive proposition for advertising
It's all very well declaring "4D Chess, check mate", but the game is Monopoly and Elon's playing it badly.
If the objective was to piss $44bn up the wall and slash the advertising revenue then that's a win, but in this case the "Check-Mate" amounts to rolling King Musk over on his side in the corner of the board, having sacrificed every last pawns, rook, queen, bishop and knight. There is no hidden picture, Elon paid $44bn to tank the business, maybe he'll get a tax-break for it.
We're looking for a dynamic person to take the reins at the world's biggest dumpster fire - Twitter!
Don't worry about having to make those 'hard decision' about who to fire, Elon's already done that, so it should be a walk in the park.
Essential qualities:
* big fan of Elon Musk
* willing to work 80+ hrs per week
* big fan of Elon Musk
* can work multiple roles eg CEO, compliance, legal, operations, sales, marketing, engineering
* big fan of Elon Musk
* knows how many RPC calls in Android Twitter app
* big fan of Elon Musk
Did we mention you should be a big fan of Elon Musk?
Twitter is rapidly going into a death spasm, Elon's insane behavior is a great catalyst for its imminent demise, please let him stay till it's completely and utterly destroyed. From it's ashes we can hopefully get a social network that's once again properly moderation and not turned into a hate filled cesspool. Twitter is a digitel sewer, please let it die.
I don't think Tesla is particularly cash rich so that will be in stock which is grossly overvalued and long overdue a "readjustment" (aka collapse) but even if it loses 90% of value it's still a ridiculous amount to hand out and of course not being cash is not subject to much in the way of tax.
Considering it seems like the majority of the remaining staff called his "hardcore" bluff and decided to take the money and run... I'm guessing he will most definitely be spending less time at Twitter, because there won't be a Twitter to spend time at. Maybe he can finally turn his attention to the rampant racism and sexual assault issues at the Tesla Fremont plant that has sparked multiple lawsuits already. Oh who am I kidding, he'll probably offer another flight attendant a pony to jerk him off instead.
Musk too has a ludicrous mode, but the problem is that it can't be disabled.
Meanwhile, a former Tesla staff member quietly starts eating away at his profit margins at Tesla..
"Meanwhile, a former Tesla staff member quietly starts eating away at his profit margins at Tesla.."
Lucid isn't all that good either. 410 miles on a single charge is not useful. Let's discount 10% for some safety margin and call the range 370 miles. At 60mph average, that's over six hours of driving. My max is around 4 hours between meals and since getting older, comfort breaks shorten that span to about 2 hours if I don't drink too much coffee. I also only make a trip as long as all that about every other year. In the mean time, I'm hauling around a ton (or more) of battery that does me no good, will cost much more to replace if I hang on to the car and adds another zero to the purchase price. While an Ionic 5 has a much shorter range, it charges so fast that a quick stop to use the loo might be all the car needs for a top up (to 80%ish).
The Lucid air does compete with Tesla's Model S, but so few of those are being sold these days that it's not a very high bar. With Bjorn Nyland's rave revue of the top spec Mercedes EV, I think I'd prefer one of those when they've ironed out the bugs if I could afford something in that price range. I'm not holding my breath.
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