Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk on Thursday said that there is a possibility that the social media company could go bankrupt, Bloomberg reported.
His remarks came amid a slew of resignations of senior officials who worked in departments related to the privacy and security of the California company.
In his first address to Twitter employees, Musk said that the company would not be able to survive the upcoming economic downturn if it fails to boost subscription revenue to counterbalance the falling income from advertisements.
“We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription,” Musk told the employees at Twitter, according to The Guardian.
Even since he took over Twitter on October 27, Musk has taken several measures related to the functioning of the social media platform.
He laid off 50% of workers at Twitter across the world, saying there was no option but to let employees go when the company has been losing $4 million a day. He also disbanded Twitter’s board of directors to become “sole director”.
The 51-year-old entrepreneur even announced that the social media platform will charge users $8, or about Rs 662, a month for a blue tick beside their account name indicating that their profile is verified.
Musk, the world’s richest person, has been scrambling to shore up the company’s revenue streams since completing his $44 billion (over Rs 3.36 lakh crore) takeover of Twitter. He has taken billions of dollars as debt and recently sold Tesla shares worth $4 billion (over Rs 32,000 crore).
In Thursday’s meeting, Musk also said that he was planning to end Twitter’s remote work policy, reported Reuters.
He added that employees would be expected in the office for at least 40 hours per week.
Meanwhile, Twitter’s chief information security officer resigned, vacating one of the company’s most critical roles.
“I’ve made the hard decision to leave Twitter,” Lea Kissner wrote in a tweet. “I’ve had the opportunity to work with amazing people and I’m so proud of the privacy, security, and IT teams and the work we’ve done.”
Besides Kissner, Twitter’s head of integrity and safety Yoel Roth resigned from the company, Reuters reported, citing sources at the company. His Twitter profile described him as the “former head of trust and safety” at the company.
Twitter’s Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran and Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty also quit, reported Reuters.
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