Twitter’s chief executive, Parag Agraval, tried to quell employees’ anger on Friday during a company-wide meeting that asked officials for answers on how managers plan to deal with the expected mass eviction caused by Elon Musk.
The meeting comes after Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, who struck a $ 44 billion deal to buy the social media company, repeatedly criticized Twitter’s practices for moderating content and the chief executive responsible for setting speech and language policies. safety.
At a town hall meeting, executives said the company would monitor staff depletion on a daily basis, but it was too early to say how the buyout deal with Musk would affect staff retention.
Musk has suggested creditors reduce the salaries of board and CEOs, but the exact cost cuts remain unclear, according to sources familiar with the matter. One source said Musk would not decide on job cuts until he took ownership of Twitter.
“I’m tired of hearing about shareholder value and fiduciary debt. What are your honest thoughts about the very high probability that many employees will not have a job after the transaction is completed? a Twitter employee asked Agrawal a question read aloud during the meeting.
Agraval replied that Twitter has always taken care of its employees and will continue to do so.
“I believe that the future organization on Twitter will continue to care about its impact on the world and its customers,” he said.
Executives said during the meeting that the dropout rate had not changed from levels before news of Musk’s interest in buying the company.
In recent days, Musk has tweeted a criticism of Twitter’s lead lawyer, Vijaya Gade, a Twitter veteran widely respected in Silicon Valley and intrinsically known as Twitter’s “moral authority.”
On Monday, Gade was reported to have cried during a virtual meeting with the company’s legal and political teams as she expressed concern about the company’s trajectory.
In response to YouTube’s Saajar Enjeti tweet about the company’s “supreme defender of censorship” who once censored the New York Post for an article about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, Musk tweeted: “Termination of the Twitter account of a major news organization a real story was obviously incredibly inappropriate. ”
Musk’s attack sparked a series of online harassment targeting Gade. Consumers targeted Gadde, tweeting, “Just stop, scum” and “WHITE POWER!” WHITE PRIDE! ”
Earlier this week, Musk also called for end-to-end encryption on the social media platform, raising concerns among consumers and lawmakers who fear such protections could make it easier for extremists and criminals to work online.
“Twitter DM must have end-to-end encryption like Signal so that no one can spy or hack your messages,” he tweeted Wednesday.
Officials told executives that they feared that Musk’s chaotic behavior could destabilize Twitter’s business and damage it financially as the company prepares to address the advertising world in a presentation next week in New York.
“Do we have a short-term strategy on how to deal with investors who attract investment?” An employee asked.
Sarah Personet, Twitter’s chief customer officer, said the company works to communicate frequently with advertisers and assure them that “the way we serve our customers doesn’t change.”
After the meeting, a Twitter employee told Reuters that he had little confidence in what executives had to say.
“The talk of PR is not coming. We have been told not to run out and do work that you are proud of, but there is no clear incentive for employees to do so, “the employee told Reuters, noting that compensation for non-executive employees is now limited due to the deal.
Agraval was expected to receive approximately $ 42 million if terminated within 12 months of a change in control of the social media company, according to research firm Equilar.
During the meeting, Agrawal called on employees to expect change in the future under new leadership and acknowledged that the company could perform better over the years.
“Yes, we could have made things different and better. I could have done things differently. I think about it a lot, “he said.
On Friday, Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey used the platform to write: “I recently tried to take a break from Twitter, but I must say: the company has always tried to do everything possible given the information it had. Every decision we made was ultimately my responsibility *. In cases where we made a mistake or went too far, we acknowledged this and worked to correct it. “
He added: “A transparent system, both in politics and in operations, is the right way to gain trust. Whether it is owned by a company or an open protocol does not matter _so much as_ that the deliberate decision is open to any decision and why it was made. It’s not easy to do, but it has to happen. “
Dorsey also writes that he does not believe that permanent bans are correct, except for those involving criminal activity. “That’s why we need a protocol that is resistant to the upper layers,” he explained.
Twitter declined to comment further.
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