Twitter rewards remaining loyal staff by decimating them

Twitter has reportedly axed about another 200 employees, equivalent to roughly 10 per cent of its workforce. The biz has undergone dramatic changes since it was acquired by Elon Musk for $44 billion. Shortly after the billionaire took over as CEO, Twitter's 7,500 staff was in November slashed by more than 50 per cent. Entire …

[Howard Sway]

Famous for a photo of herself kipping on the floor at Twitter HQ to meet Musk's demanding deadlines

Sleeping on the job? What sort of selfish lack of commitment is this when you feel that you can spend time in the office not actually working but indulging in such self indulgent behaviour? And daring to show the world how lazy you are! This is sending precisely the wrong sort of message about what's expected, good riddance to all these people who can't produce high volumes of quality work when they've been awake for 3 days!

Frankly, it's code til you drop time now, and once you're all used up there'll be more willing suckers willing to be used up next. And if you're still here after a week we'll know you've been slacking because nobody working hard enough can last that long!

[jake]

Re: Famous for a photo of herself kipping on the floor ::snip for brevity::

Just for the record, sleeping in the office is a long-standing tradition in Silly Con Valley.

Admittedly, it's usually only during the final push on shipping a new or vastly improved product ... or when attempting to meet sales projections for a quarter-end's last second hocky-stick sales profile (sales weasels are notorious for this).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Famous for a photo of herself kipping on the floor ::snip for brevity::

When I was young and foolish, me and this other guy started a company. We'd put in ridiculous hours. One thing I did notice that code I wrote after having been awake for > 24 hours was generally terrible.

[Anonymous Coward]

It just got worse (again)

Scott "Dilbert" Adams finally came out proper (via a major rant) as a man with questionable opinions and the Dilbert cartoon thus got removed from pretty much every publication.

It was thus inevitable that Musk started defending him.

I'm guessing there were still some advertisers left that hadn't gone yet, that had to be fixed..

[jake]

Re: It just got worse (again)

I guess the whack-jobs gotta support the bat-shit crazy in a kind of twisted variation on a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" scenario.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Not only that, but it's now come out that Twitter's blue verify check has mostly benefited Putin.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/02/22/russian-propagandists-said-buy-twitter-blue-check-verifications/

But then, Musk is a white South African who's family benefitted greatly from apartheid, which makes his Scott Adams support expected.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It just got worse (again)

My wife is a white African whose experience of comments exactly like this goes back to childhood, making it clear, if ever it was unclear, that racism goes both ways, whether anyone likes that or not.

I doubt you'd say, would you, that the criminality of one of the grossly disproportionate number of black people in the United States prison system was "expected" on the basis of ethnicity?

I certainly wouldn't. Musk is a twat, but if we agree on that, we agree that there are better ways of expressing that than attacking his race or nationality.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

It might be a cliché, but an awful lot of rich white South-Africans got that way through colonialism, and the apartheid system. This, of course, doesn't mean that colonialism, greed, and racism are uniquely white-people attributes.

That's also not to say that rich people elsewhere didn't get to be that way through similarly nefarious means. Money tends to gravitate towards the ill-intentioned.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It just got worse (again)

The KKK might have increased their ad spending on Twitter though

[Khaptain]

Re: It just got worse (again)

"Scott "Dilbert" Adams finally came out proper (via a major rant) as a man with questionable opinions and the Dilbert cartoon thus got removed from pretty much every publication."

Can you please explain in clear terms what you found questionable about his opinion ?

[Korev]

Re: It just got worse (again)

This article describes some of the things he said.

[Persona]

Re: It just got worse (again)

According to that that link 26% of the black respondents disagreed with the statement "it's OK to be white". Interesting, and upsetting. Had it been 26% of white respondents disagreeing with the statement "it's OK to be black" wouldn't it be natural to think of that 26% of whites as a "hate group"? And so natural for black folks to feel it best to keep away from them?

I said "interesting and upsetting" because I have never come across that phrase before so there was no context for me. I see the author of the article believes to have emerged in 2017 as a trolling campaign and has since been used by white supremacists. With that context the 26% response was less surprising/upsetting.

The good news to take away is that 53% of the black respondents agreed with the statement "it's OK to be white". Lets hope that an equal and hopefully much much larger, percentage of white people would agree with the statement "it's OK to be black"

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Here is another example:

If you were to wind back ten years and survey people to ask whether they would agree with the phrase "all lives matter", you'd probably find most people agreeing, apart from maybe a small minority of white supremacists. Of course they would, it would be a metaphor for "equality for all".

However, if you were to do that same survey today, with the context that the phrase has been used as a "counter" to "black lives matter" and as a shorthand for "I don't care that you've been systemically discriminated against", you'd almost certainly find a much higher number of people disagreeing with the phrase, and they would not be the same people. Context is everything. It is now a metaphor for the status-quo, which is not "equality for all".

Boiling a complex issue down to a yes or no answer also loses all subtlety from the question and robs it of context.

FWIW, yes, all lives do matter, but also black people have been, and continue to be, discriminated against, largely by white people, and much more progress needs to be made towards equality both of treatment, and opportunity for people of all races, especially in the US. That's not a "yes or no" answer, though, is it, and demanding such answers to seemingly-simple but actually complex questions is deeply misleading. Scott Adams must know that, he's not stupid, but he does appear to be a racist ass-hat.

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Context is everything.

The organisation that carried out the poll knew this, and worded the question and did their post-hoc analysis expecting to get the answer they did. Who would conduct a poll like that, and why?

Superficial reading of the situation: Scott Adams is a martyr for free speech.

Deep reading: Someone's trying to divide society along liberal / conservative divisions, and succeeding.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

It suits populists to keep the population divided. If the people are fighting each other, you can carry on robbing them blind without being noticed.

[jollyboyspecial]

Re: It just got worse (again)

@Elongated Muskrat

The problem with the phrase Black Lives Matter is that it was always going to be hijacked by people to who any mention of race is as a red rag to a bull. If the people originating that phrase had thought about the sort of people they would be dealing with then something along the lines of Black Lives Matter As Much As Any Other Lives might have worked better. It's very difficult to argue with that without coming across as an out and out racist. Sure it doesn't trip of the tongue (or the keyboard) as easily as BLM but it would would have made it harder to argue against.

[gnasher729]

Re: It just got worse (again)

There’s a major discussion about this somewhere on stackexchange. Unfortunately the very reasonable “it’s ok to be white” has become the war cry of “white supremacists” in the USA. Although I prefer to call them “White Suppositories”.

So the correct answer is: White Supremacists are f***ing a***h***s. And it’s ok to be white. Also correct when this question is asked in the USA today: FU.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Are you just trolling or do you really need it explained in simple terms to you?

[Khaptain]

Re: It just got worse (again)

I am asking you a serious question....

So, yes , please explain it to me in simple terms what you thought was questionable..

.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Well, let's go with the first paragraph of that article, under the first sub-heading:

In a video on YouTube, Scott Adams, who is white, said black Americans were part of a "hate group" and that white people should "get the hell away" from them.

Do you find that acceptable? Because to me, it sounds an awful lot like plain ol' white supremacist racism, which, for the record, I do not find acceptable. I don't think my assessment there is especially controversial either. See also Cyanide and Happiness's take on it.

Now, I've not listened to the rant myself and I doubt I have to, to get the gist of it; Scott Adams was already well-known as a bit of a RWNJ, and this is only in character. The BBC (which is where the link above directs you) are not known especially for taking quotes out of context, and would certainly get picked up on it if they did, even if their political neutrality is suspect (with political appointees basically in charge), if anything, they would be expected to be biased towards not reporting that.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

...and I see from the downvote that the RWNJs are here already. Huzzah!

[Khaptain]

Re: It just got worse (again)

"Now, I've not listened to the rant myself and I doubt I have to, to get the gist of it;"

So you've not listed to the rant and yet feel capable of writing a public comment about it.

Did you actually read the Poll figures that he cited or are they not important for you either? Are facts not important ?

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

No, I read a verbatim quote of what he said on a (reasonably) reliable well known news web-site.

I don't need to listen to someone ranting if I can read a transcript, and be assured that the transcript is correct.

Is the transcript incorrect? I'm willing to be money that it is not.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

FWIW, it's pretty obvious why some of the respondents in that poll respond the way they did.

It is perfectly understandable for black people to not feel comfortable with a phrase that is used by white supremacists as an idiom for their racist behaviour.

If you can't understand this, then you are either deliberately not understanding it, or are absolutely part of the problem.

[Khaptain]

Re: It just got worse (again)

I travelled for many years and have lived and worked in many countries, including the USA, and I found that most people were genuinely nice people, neither racist, nor homophobe, or *phobe or whatever...

Only the modern ideologues seen to have the opposite opinion. This is what makes me believe that all this woke ideology is causing far more harm than it pretends to resolve.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

You are aware that "woke ideology" basically boils down to be nice to each other, right?

Your whole post is one big contradiction: Be nice to each other, but don't be "woke"?

I'm going to conclude that you are just an idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Watch out, people have been being nailed to dead trees for at least 2000 years for suggesting we should all be nice to each other...

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Don't worry, I'm not claiming to be the Son of God, although many fanatics might consider the namesake of my handle as such.

[Khaptain]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Being Woke has nothing to do with being nice to one another, it's all about enforcing one way of thinking...

It boils to the following : If you don't agree/adhere to/with our "current" ideology we will slander you , cancel you, hunt you down where you work and ensure misery upon you. The problem lies in the fact that it will also bite you back..

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Woke is now just a word RWNJs use whenever they can't use the epithet of choice of their hated out-group any more without declaring themselves as openly bigoted.

Test: Take any sentence using it (except as the pluperfect of wake), substitute any other hate speech identifier you can imagine, and say the sentence to yourself. Shows the sentence for what it is: a disguised slur.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

That might be what it means to you, but if you take that meaning then that really marks you out as someone who thinks that and is using it as jusitfication.

The origin of the word (which isn't really in use in the UK except as an insult thrown around by RWNJs) is to be awake to social injustice. Presumably, you're fine with social injustice then?

Perhaps you need to get out of whatever echo chamber it is you're in where they're throwing it about, because it sounds decidedly unhealthy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Oh, the irony...

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Multiple choice question:

Coming to an open-minded or inclusive world view after listening to a broad range of views and opinions is:

a) easier

b) more difficult

[Persona]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Indeed. Being nice to each other is a good recipe for life and if that is "woke" then fine. I fully support and to the best of my ability support that behavior. However my current perception of "woke" is people taking a position of being "woke" that permits them to denounce others as being racist, male, cis, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, boomer, descended from slavers and probably much more. By no stretch of the imagination can I see that as being nice behavior. Under the circumstances it would also be a stretch of the imagination for the denounced to want to continue being nice to their woke denouncer and beyond.

[willyslick]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Rather strange perception of the meaning of woke you have there.

People speaking out against percieved discrimination (racist, male, cis, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, boomer, descended from slavers and probably much more) don't I think refer to themselves as woke nor do they feel it grants them any permission to do anything. They are reacting to an injustice they percieve.

Are you saying that "nice behaviour" means they need to keep their opinion to themselves and not call it out? Ever heard the saying "silence is consent?

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

That's not "woke", those are just dickheads. The world, unfortunately, is full of them, at all points on the political spectrum. Just because someone else is being a dickhead, doesn't mean you have to follow suit, in an equal-and-opposite-dickhead kind of way. Newton's laws of motion don't apply to dickheadery...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It just got worse (again)

That's fine so long as it's true. At least sometimes, and not that infrequently, what "woke" actually tends to mean is to make prejudicial criticisms of white people, straight people, and men, and particularly people who are all of the above. The hypocrisy of this is staggering, but worse, I hate to think what it's going to do to society in the long term (and no, it isn't just going to create a situation in which everyone is nice to one another - quite the opposite, I fear).

I try to avoid the word "woke" as it has no widely agreed meaning, but it's rarely a good thing in my experience. Blindly signing off on anything that falls even vaguely under that banner is not a very good idea.

And yes, I always try to be nice to everyone.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

In practice, the only time you hear the word is when someone is complaining that they have been called out on their own behaviour, or they find themselves uncomfortable that other people are disadvantaged compared to them, and it is being pointed out, and their only defence is "woke". Sometimes it is uncomfortable to realise that your life is relatively comfortable compared to that of others who, for example, might be in a group that runs the risk of getting beaten up by thugs just for walking down the street.

For the right-wing nutters, "woke" is just their modern equivalent of "political correctness gone mad", another meaningless shibboleth used simply to "other" people they see as different. A good example of this is a recent case with the Daily Telegraph where they described something or other as "woke" for including disabled people and then quickly back-pedalled when people rightly pointed out that their headline-writers were being class-A thundercunts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It just got worse (again)

But do you not see you're doing exactly the same thing (clearly not, or otherwise you wouldn't be posting this)? You're also sticking anyone who dissents into the RWNJ category (thanks - had to look that up), or some kind of privilege. Stop with the categories, full-stop! We're individuals! Just because someone is white, or middle-aged, or male, doesn't make them privileged. This is the poison of identity politics - it constantly compartmentalises everyone instead of acknowledging we're all individuals, with our own stories. I've always considered myself left-wing, btw, but this idiocy leaves me cold, mainly because it is left-wing McCarthyism, and fundamentally illiberal. The justifications for it are also eerily reminiscent of the intolerance of the right.

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: It just got worse (again)

It's called compassion.

It's easy from a privileged point of view to wake up in the morning and imagine that everyone starts off each day on a level playing field. If simply living is a daily reminder of how unlevel the playing field really is, anger at hearing the privileged groups telling you how OK it is to exercise the privilege is natural. I'm surprised the patience has lasted this long.

We can't fix history but we're culpable if we ignore it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It just got worse (again)

The problem is that there's a flip side of that in which you're inculcating people in the belief that the world it out to get them in a way it usually isn't, and to a degree it's usually not. Completely uncritical acceptance of any claim of racism and bigotry, by any person, at any time, is potentially unhelpful to both that person and society at large.

In short there is a balance to be struck here. It's a much more complicated situation than most people want it to be, which has led to a horribly polarised debate, and if anything is required it's an appreciation that everything has nuance.

[BlokeInTejas]

Re: It just got worse (again)

I believe that Mr Adams said that " if the poll results were true then..."

But of course it's much more fun to jump in with knee-jerk "he's a racist" rant than actually think.

Plus, as someone else here has mentioned, folk who do polls generally know what result they want, and word things so they're likely to get them.

The BBC is not a neutral organisation; they have an agenda and they choose and present news that suits that agenda. And you can see the agenda at work, if your quote is accurate, because they left out the important context of "if the poll results were true.."

And of course, when you've already interpreted what someone has said without bothering to check there's no reason whatsoever to go check before uttering bullshit. Just spread the hate, right?

[Filippo]

Re: It just got worse (again)

He literally called for white people to stay away from black people.

At this point, either you are posing a rhetorical question or trolling, in which case I suspect your opinion is pretty much set in stone and attempts to explain would only be met with more sophistry, or you honestly don't know why segregation is considered problematic, in which case a proper explanation starting from that level would be well beyond the constraints of a message board post.

Either way, there's not much any of us can do to help you.

I wish you well in your attempts to understand why other people think what they think; it's a good endevour.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It just got worse (again)

>Can you please explain in clear terms what you found questionable about his opinion ?

It goes against the CNN narrative that he has been told to believe.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: It just got worse (again)

For years Scott Adams has held a mirror up to tech world. There's a lot of stuff that he's been accused of that I woudn't agree with at all but with Dilbert he's been on the money again and again, not by victimising anyone but highlighting the hordes of people who are prepared to jump to the defence of an imagined sleight. For many, this counts as argument enough (debate isn't required when "cancelling" someone, just fingers in your ears and "nananana"). And fair play to someone who is prepared to take this kind of risk to defend the right of free speech.

This from <a href="https://dilbert.com/strip/2023-02-23>last week</a> seemed a "good point well made" that I'm sure a lot of people will have missed.

Musk should be given credit for at least sometimes having the courage to put his inherited money where is mouth is, though he does seem to me like yet another entitled fool. I hope Twitter crashes and burns and takes him with it. Well, one can hope!

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

He hasn't been "cancelled" because of what his Dilbert strip contains (which are the same five jokes it has always contained, reworded), it has happened because of what he has said in a personal capacity. The Dilbert strip could be replaced by ChatGPT at this point and nobody would notice anyway (except it wouldn't necessarily contain jokes about ChatGPT)

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

For reference, so nobody ever needs to read Dilbert again, those five jokes are:

1) Dilbert's boss (the PHB) is stupid

2) Dilbert's co-worker, Alice, is female, doesn't tolerate stupidity, and is angry as a result

3) Dogbert's cat, Catbert, can talk, and is evil

4) Dilbert's other co-worker, Wally, doesn't do any work, and knows how to get away with it.

5) Dilbert's other other co-worker, Asok is an intern, and doesn't realise he's being exploited.

There are a few other themes that aren't the main jokes, where Adams comes up with something vaguely original once a year or so, such as:

6) Generic racist / xenophobic jokes about "Elbonians"

7) Bin men secretly know everything

8) Dilbert has no social skills

9) Something nasty happens to a generic co-worker / generic co-worker is stupid

10) Loud Alan

I think that just about covers it. Oh, sometimes there's a rat (Ratbert) or a dinosaur (can't remember his name, it's probably several years since Adams has used that character)

[Uncle Slacky]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Not to forget Mordac, the preventer of information services, who is essentially a BOFH.

[Persona]

Re: It just got worse (again)

Hmm Tina is relatively important to the joke (6?) about Dilbert's social anxiety but you have missed out Dogbert a main character whose moral indifference (joke 7) is the center of a good proportion of stories. Perhaps you are mixing him up with Catbert. Catbert is evil but for no other reason than being HR Director (joke 3)

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: It just got worse (again)

You're right, I conflated Dogbert and Catbert. They are, however, pretty much interchangeable, just the same character in different settings.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It just got worse (again)

nor would it speak poorly of microsoft. I know. I tried today. no matter how I prompted it, it sang nothing but praises of microsoft and teams

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely it can't be long until it finally stops floating around the bowl and sinks to the bottom....

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that's an interesting physics question: do dead birds float or sink?

[that one in the corner]

Depends upon how much hot air and/or foul smelling gas they are full of - so expect Twitter to end with nothing but a stream of Muskisms as it rises from the surface of the pond, dripping scum, until it overinflates and bursts[1] in a shower of high-velocity screaming newscasters deprived of their main source of "stories".

[1] apologies if you are eating

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently they both float and sink, as the corpse decays the bacteria creates gases which can make it buoyant enough to rise to the surface.

So you're best encasing it in concrete to ensure it can't rise from the dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently they both float and sink

Ah, so they're bobbing. Got it.

:)

[monty75]

Depends : African or European birds?

[TheSirFin]

Neither :-)

This turkey is going to crash and burn!

And I have a big bag of mastodon marshmallows which I am looking forward to toasting!

[Elongated Muskrat]

If it's adequately weighed down, it'll sink. About $44Bn of debt should weigh it down nicely.

[IamStillIan]

Maybe this is part of a personal Tax write down excercise for Musk.

He's concerned that Telsa 's losses aren't enough to match PayPals resulting a profit sometime soon, so needs a large loss maker to make sure he doesn't accidently contribute any tax.

[Ace2]

That’s as good an explanation as any other I’ve seen.

[doublelayer]

That's an expensive way to do that, because not all the money used to purchase Twitter was loaned by stupid banks. Unless he thinks he can eventually get Twitter back to a better level where he can borrow against it, he's just throwing away money instead of paying it in tax. There's not much difference (assuming you don't care about the things that taxes pay for), because either way you end up with a lot less money to spend on whatever still seems expensive when you have billions of dollars around.

We're all trying to think of some reason that this situation emerged logically. It makes sense for us to do it, and I've been considering options for a while. We may have to admit that there may not be an answer that satisfies our instincts that says there must be a master plan somewhere. It may be that he just doesn't know what he's doing and can stand to lose the cash, so he does it.

[midcapwarrior]

maybe musk is following the trump playbook

Not exactly the same but trump borrowed millions to buy casinos, an airline, hotels....

He ultimately walked away pretty cleanly when he went through his seven bankruptcies.

When you are a regular guy borrowing and going broke can ruin you.

When you are rich, not so much.

[jobst]

Matter of time

It's just a matter of time until people find enough rocks to attach to the bird's legs so it can't fly anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sleeping at work is old hat

Many years ago we had a mattress stashed in a large electrical riser at work.

Entrance by key only, many a hang-over was managed there.

Some may have started there too.

[chivo243]

Re: Sleeping at work is old hat

I slept at work often, just not for the night. I would take the time others used for smoke breaks to sequester myself in the serverroom for 15 or 20 minutes, perfect powernap!

[Mitoo Bobsworth]

Anyone else smell a tax dodge?

Considering Musks overt (one could say intentional) display of mismanagement, there has to be an additional reason for his behaviour with Twitter other than calamitous incompetence.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Anyone else smell a tax dodge?

He could also be a boorish idiot to boot?

[Darth.0]

Re: Anyone else smell a tax dodge?

He could also be a boorish idiot to boot.

FIFY

[Winkypop]

Forty-four thousand million dollars

That’s gotta keep you up at night.

Surely.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Forty-four thousand million dollars

not if it's the banks money and you know you won't be liable for the repayment...just the schlubs who work for you

[tyrfing]

Re: Forty-four thousand million dollars

One thing banks are known for is almost always getting their money.

Any loans will have been against security.

It's true that any employees there are betting that Musk will succeed in making it a going concern - or else doing the ostrich.

Hopefully he's gotten rid of most of the ostriches by now. They're likely the ones who were not doing much.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Forty-four thousand million dollars

One thing banks are known for is almost always getting their money.

Any loans will have been against security.

Except, apparently, if they provided it to Trump who even sued a bank for having the temerity of asking their money back.

Normal people first have to prove they don't need a loan before the banks authorise one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Twitter run out of coffee machines and office furniture to sell?

Maybe they could start selling employees’ blood plasma?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Did Twitter run out of coffee machines and office furniture to sell?

A microdosing machine with a desired level for each employee is waaaay too expensive for the Birdie tech company.

[Little Mouse]

Thank you El-Reg...

Appropriate use of "decimated". Go to the top of the class.

(I was going to award you top marks, 10/10, but that might be viewed as commentard-baiting)

[Headley_Grange]

Re: Thank you El-Reg...

The original meaning was to kill one tenth of the men in a legion, so it's not really an appropriate usage.

The accepted meaning has, of course, changed over time. My very old Pocket OED only has the original meaning, but most dictionaries today define it first as a large reduction;

"kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of" - OED

"reduce drastically, especially in number" - M-W

[jake]

Re: Thank you El-Reg...

"The original meaning was to kill one tenth of the men in a legion"

In Latin, yes, kind of[0]. But there weren't a lot of Legions in the English speaking world of the 17th century. When the Latin decimatus (past participle of decimare) was imported into the English Language in the 1660s as the cognate decimate, it had pretty much the same meaning as it has today.

[0] Latin didn't use the word. See above.

[chivo243]

Huh? Slack?

perhaps to see how well teams worked without the chat tool... Don't the manage a chat tool? Why use\pay for another? Surely they could have lifted the 140 limit for internal coms? Waste, waste, waste...

[Dave K]

Funding

"Reminder: Elon spent $44 billion on this. Forty-four thousand million dollars"

Well, actually he didn't. Because in the wonderful world of finance, you can take out loans against the entity you are buying. So $13bn of that are loans now owed by Twitter (not Musk). This is part of the reason Twitter is up such a familiarly named creek, because of the massive interest payments it now owes on those loans.

The question will be if Twitter can survive this. It won't be the first or last company to be sunk by the burden of interest payments as a result of a buy-out that massively increases a company's debt.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The question will be if Twitter can survive this.

Before Lord Elon the Almighty Grifter 2nd in Command (No45 is top dog) exits stage left leaving a load of suckers to weep as their investment turns to dust.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The question will be if Twitter can survive this.

No45 is top dog?

Biden Junior's laptop says different ...

[lglethal]

Re: Funding

I really cannot understand how leveraged buyouts are still legal. They seem such a corrupt, underhanded way to go about things, and bring about the downfall of so many firms, and yet apparently they are still legal. I'd go on about "Best Government money can buy" but it seems there legal in almost the entirety of the Western World,so this is not just an American problem, although it certainly seems more common in the States...

[Dave K]

Re: Funding

I agree entirely. Plenty of otherwise profitable companies have been felled by such buyouts. Over in the UK, Maplin was one of them. Several changes of ownership adding more and more leveraged debt, then when sales declined, the company quickly plunged into a loss-making position and was wound up. Without the burden of those interest payments, the company would have suffered a decline in profitability, but certainly wouldn't have sank as quickly as it did. Numerous other examples exist as well.

Simple fact is, Twitter sold for $44bn, and Musk should be liable for every single cent of that, but he isn't.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: Funding

There's a whole string of "familiar" high-street names in the UK that have suffered that fate, and often at the hands of the same small number of people. Two that spring immediately to mind are BHS and Debenhams.

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: Funding

It sounds like on that basis you would have to make the IPO illegal too, because that's basically the same process in reverse.

Everyone involved in Musk's buyout went into it with open eyes, but only one party tried to get out of it afterwards because of the dawning realisation of how bad a deal it was for one side. The people who got the better side of the deal have still got the $44b (or whatever you can buy with that sort of coin).

[lglethal]

Re: Funding

No not really. An IPO sells shares in a company to investors. Those investors are now owners of the firm. If the firm makes money, share price goes up, and they make money, in addition they might get a share of the profits in the form of a dividend, however, if the firm loses money, the share price goes down and if they sell they lose money. It's standard stock trading.

In a leveraged buyout, the "investors" buy the firm, become its owners, but are not responsible for any of the debt they've organised in order to buy the firm. So the new owners have just borrowed a ton of cash, but they dont have to actually pay back that cash, the company has to pay for it. But the "investors" remain the boss of the firm, even though it's the firm itself paying off it's own debt.

Compare that to if you buy a house. You organise a loan from a bank, so YOU are responsible for the debt on the house. And as you pay it off, the House becomes yours. However, if you fail to pay for it, the bank might take possession of the house, sell it off to pay off your debt, and if that doesnt cover the full loan, then the bank will also chase you to pay off the debt.

But imagine, if you could buy your house with a leveraged buyout. You would own the house, but the house would be expected to pay the debts (I guess your renting the house out for that to work :P), if the House doesnt pay off its loans, then sure the bank can take possession of the house, and sell it off, but if that doesnt cover the debts. Well too bad for the bank, your home scot free. And you probably still "own" the land, so can tear down the house and build something on the rubble. All up it's pretty much cost you nothing, as the bank held all the debt, but you got to be the "owner".

I'll never understand why any bank would get involved in such a purchase, they pretty much only ever stand to lose or at best break even...

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: Funding

It's a bit like that, but after "buying" the house, you are free to strip all the fixtures and fittings, flog them off, then strip it down to the building materials, flog them off too, pay yourself handsome dividends for the "profits" you are making selling everything off by counting it as "income", then write off the debt that is owned by the area of thin-air where the house used to be. Also known as asset-stripping.

You will have bought the house using the bank's money, sold it off bit by bit, keeping that money, then walked away with the cash, while the bank is in the red, essentially legalised bank robbery.

[S4qFBxkFFg]

Re: Funding

"The question will be if Twitter can survive this. It won't be the first or last company to be sunk by the burden of interest payments as a result of a buy-out that massively increases a company's debt."

Presumably, if it goes bust, all the assets will then need to be sold.

In that case, what is stopping a Mr. E M from buying the brand and the data (at a much reduced price)?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Funding

Not all that much reduced. He's also personally on the hook for billions. It's "only" the bank loans that are leveraged against Twitter, ie the value of Twitter is the security the banks accepted as security against the loans. Not to mention the reputation damage caused if and when he needs investors or bank loans for future ventures.

[lotus49]

Re: Funding

The same thing is happening to one of my old employers, Morrisons. Morrisons has traditionally had a strong balance sheet but the PE takeover put paid to that. It is now saddled with large debts just as interest rates are rising, limiting the amount they can invest in price which has driven customers away. Morrisons had been the 4th biggest supermarket for a long time. Now it's 5th and it can only be a short time before it's 6th.

If it were still publicly quoted, I very much doubt this would ever have happened.

[moonhaus]

Re: Funding

"The same thing is happening to one of my old employers, Morrisons."

Wait you mean Morrisons is real? I mean i've seen the adverts on TV and heard about them in the news but never actually seen one. There was a rumor one opened in Oxford a few years ago, but when I got there people told me it had closed.

Some said if I went further up the M40 I might catch a glimpse of one, but others said there are dragons past junction 14.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Funding

Yes, they are reallerer than Waitrose, who also think there are dragons beyond J14 of the M40 and therefore seem mythical to Yorkshiremen :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Funding

One thing, though. Have a look at who Elon Musk Twitter has borrowed this money from. It's a bunch of big name Wall Street banks and people who cut up their adversaries with bone saws.

Peter Thiel famously said that Musk doesn't understand the concept of risk, but more or less willingly letting Twitter Inc. go bankrupt and screw over the aforementioned really requires a new definition of risk. They would have the Fail Whale for lunch.

[gnasher729]

Re: Funding

Add about 4-5 billion paid by other investors, and about 4bn paid to Elon Musk as a 9% shareholder.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really bad situation

"Even the monetization infrastructure team overseeing Twitter's revenue streams was hit by the job cuts, going from 30 people down to eight."

When this happens, the end is near ...

[IGotOut]

The guy is an asshole. End of

Yes we may laugh at his antics and no doubt he is playing some spoil brats little game...

...but he fucking up real people lives. How many bouts of mental illness, family breakups and even suicides will he have ultimately caused?

I really wish he could be jailed for this....but he's rich, so no chance.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: The guy is an asshole. End of

"he's rich"

But for how much longer?

[Jeff Smith]

Re: The guy is an asshole. End of

For the rest of his life, and far beyond. People that rich can afford not to go broke. The rules are entirely different for them.

[Khaptain]

Re: The guy is an asshole. End of

"...but he fucking up real people lives. How many bouts of mental illness, family breakups and even suicides will he have ultimately caused?"

How many exactly ? Can you provide some figures or at least a study that confirms that rather loaded statement ? And all this because of a Tweet ?

[IGotOut]

Re: The guy is an asshole. End of

"And all this because of a Tweet ?"

Try the thousands and thousands of people he's thrown on the scrap heap, all the businesses with the unpaid bills and those that make the money off the platform.

Or was that not obvious enough?

[lotus49]

Decimate

I think that is the first time I've seen the word decimate used correctly for at least a decade. Well done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh?

Regardless what's going on behind the scenes, mainstream media is still routinely inserting Twitter posts into stories under the guise of journalism.

So Twitter is still a very big deal and very much front and centre in people's daily usage.

If he can sack everyone and it still works, well done him.

[Stuart Castle]

Re: Eh?

It won't stay working long. All it would take is for something to fall over, and having worked in computing a long time, I can confidently say that will happen at some point.

It's also worth remembering that Twitter managed to make heavy losses, even with all it's advertisers and the links from the media.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Eh?

Advertisers? According to the article half of the company's top 100 advertisers, who collectively spent over $750 million in ads last year,

So even if all those top 100 advertisers were still there and paying their bills, that annual income is still only 2 months worth of loan payments. So if we assume an even spread and that losing half the top 100 advertises only loses half the spend, that's only one month loan payments from a year of advertisers fees. The question that leads to is how many smaller advertisers are still there and what does that add up to? I suppose we can infer something from the last set up Twitter accounts when they were still publicly traded. I can't be arsed to go look :-)

[Cliffwilliams44]

What country do these people think they live in?

"A class-action lawsuit was filed against the Tesla tycoon, who was accused of breaking America's employment laws by laying off employees without having given them sufficient notice."

There is not law in the US that requires notice for office worker layoff. The W.A.R.N. act only covers plant closings, i.e. factory workers and it only covers the closing of facilities, not layoffs for down turns

So either these people are stupid or they hired one stupid or sleazy lawyer!

[Citizen of Nowhere]

Re: What country do these people think they live in?

"WARN offers protection to workers, their families and communities by requiring employers to provide notice 60 days in advance of covered plant closings and covered mass layoffs.

https://www.doleta.gov/programs/factsht/WARN_Fact_sheet_updated_03.06.2019.pdf

The document, which was linked to in an earlier ElReg article on the suit, doesn't seem to leave much of what you claim above standing.

[nautica]

Re: What country do these people think they live in?

Did you really mean to repeat yourself?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: What country do these people think they live in?

"not layoffs for down turns"

At the very least, these are sackings/firings, not lay-offs. I know common usage in the US frequently uses "lay-off" for mass sackings, but the term lay-off, especially as linked by you with "downturn" for context implies it's temporary and the workers will be re-hired in a few weeks or months when things pick up again. Now, I'n all that familiar with US employment law or the WARN Act, but not all those fired employees are in "at will" jurisdictions, or even in the USA, so there most definitely ARE ex-Twitter employees who have been fired in breach of local laws, both in the US and other countries.

[Snowy]

Eight pounds

Yet you still get adverts!!!!

[nautica]

Unbelievable to find the word "decimate" used properly nowadays...

"...Twitter has reportedly axed about another 200 employees, equivalent to...10 per cent of its workforce..."

[Big_Boomer]

Isn't it dead yet?

(said in the voice of a small child from the back seat).

Damn, I'm gonna have to order more popcorn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bring out yer dead!

[A large man appears with a (seemingly) dead man over his shoulder]

Large Man: Here's one.

Dead Collector: Nine pence.

"Dead" Man: I'm not dead.

Dead Collector: What?

Large Man: Nothing. [hands the collector his money] Here's your nine pence.

"Dead" Man: I'm not dead!

Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.

Large Man: Yes he is.

"Dead" Man: I'm not.

Dead Collector: He isn't.

Large Man: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.

"Dead" Man: I'm getting better.

Large Man: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.

Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.

[jollyboyspecial]

$4M a day

Don't I recall that Mush said that Twitter was losing $4m a day?

Having borrowed billions to buy Twitter obviously those losses could only get bigger. The daily interest interest on loans of this size won't be insignificant.

Then he allegedly loses $750m of ad revenue annually. Which works out at about $2m a day. So he increased his losses by 50%.

Charging 8 bucks for a blue tick doesn't sound like it's going to be raising upwards of $6m a day. And maybe just maybe laying off about 5000 staff would save a million a day, but I doubt the overall saving will be quite that much.

Then there's all these bills he thinks he can avoid paying, like the rent for office space. He might be able to save something long term, but not in the short term. Short term I think he's probably increased his expenditure there. Even if you've moved out of a building failing to pay the rent when you're contracted to do so for months or years in the future isn't going to save you money. All it's likely to do is rack up legal fees and interest payments.

In short Mush genuinely believes he's a business genius, but it seems that even a business genius needs a calculator. Oh and a bit of common sense.

After all you can use a calculator to say - we'll save x on these layoffs and make y on the blue tick and add those two together and take them off your debt. You need a bit of common sense to realise that the layoffs are going to have some associated costs and that not everybody with a blue tick is going to pay for the privilege.

I have heard one commentator say that they thought Mush may be planning to run Twitter into the ground to declare it bankrupt and thus dodge a load of debt then buy up the assets (ie the brand name and data) from the adminstrators for cheap and start again with a blank balance sheet. I genuinely can't believe that this is the case. Firstly because he would still leave himself with the debt from the loans; secondly because he'd leave his own reputation of that and the brand in tatters; and finally because in this situation the administrators would always take the highest bid to sell the assets and I can see he would have some stiff competition for that not least from the likes of Meta. In other words it's a very shaky plan, what would happen if somebody else bought up the assets? Mush would end up with no Twitter, a ruined reputation and a load of debt.

So on that finally point I'll hand Mush a back handed compliment by saying he's not stupid enough to try that.

[nautica]

"Hanlon's Razor" applies to everything Musk does...

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."