Trimming The Fat: Twitter had 8000 employees when Elon Musk took over. Now it has 1500

Elon Musk made a lot of headlines when he started laying people off at Twitter. More than anything else, it was the sheer numbers and the manner in which the people at Twitter were terminated. Speaking to the BBC in a recent interview, Elon Musk revealed that when he took control of Twitter, the social media platform had about 8000 people on its payrolls, and employed thousands more in the form of contractors. Now, in Twitter 2.0, the social media platform employs just over 1500 people.   When he was asked what his first impressions were of Twitter, Musk said he thought it was a “really nice office building.” He added they thought the company was “spending money like it’s going out of fashion.” He then went on to highlight how the financials of the company, “$4.5 billion in revenue, 4.5 billion in costs” had created a negative cash flow situation. He says it was being run “really like a non-profit”. A negative cash flow situation Musk went on to explain, that the decision to lay people off was because of the cash flow issues at Twitter when he arrived. He explained that there was “a $3 billion negative cash flow situation”, leaving Twitter with “four months to live." When pressed further and asked if the sacking of these many people was justified, Musk explained, saying, “The issue is like the company’s going to go bankrupt if we do not cut costs immediately. This is not a caring, uncaring situation. It’s like if the whole ship sinks then nobody’s got a job.” He went on to say, “What would you do? If you’ve four months to live, a 120 days, in a hundred and 20 days you’re dead, so what do you want to do?” Various litigations Twitter is facing a lot of legal troubles after Elon Musk’s takeover and subsequent laying off of people. Twitter has been sued at least six times for allegedly violating federal and state laws that require 60 days’ notice for mass layoffs. The lawsuits also claims that the layoffs disproportionately targeted women and contract workers.   Some former Twitter employees have also sued the company over unpaid legal bills that they incurred on behalf of Twitter. The nature of the terminations Musk has often been accused of firing people for not agreeing with him, which has led to the speculation that he wants “yes men” to surround him. Musk famously fired an engineer who pointed out one of Musk’s conceptual misakes about the platform. Furthermore, Musk has often been seen getting involved in petty Twitter feuds with some of Twitter’s most prominent engineers, before being laid off. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .