Social media giant Twitter bled financially after many of its advertisers paused their ad spending to see how it would play out with Elon Musk at the helm.
Musk announced a "massive drop in revenue" but did not provide detail on how much.
The billionaire, who only days ago branded himself as Twitter in Chief but changed it to Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator, tweeted the financial bleeding.
Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022
Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.
He blamed the "activist groups pressuring advertisers" for the revenue loss. Again, he did not provide detail about who these activist groups were.
Companies Pause Ad Spending
The announcement came after several Twitter advertisers, some of them are Tesla rivals, said they are going to temporarily suspend their ad spending.
Food giant General Mills and Tesla rivals such as General Motors and Audi had already stopped their ad spending on Twitter, CNBC reports.
While advertising firm IPG advised its clients to suspend their ad plans on Twitter, it was not clear if these clients would heed the advice.
Attack Against First Amendment
Musk, in an interview, said the operations have not changed despite opposition from groups whom he labeled as "activist groups."
He claimed to have made some efforts to conciliate these groups, but none has produced positive results so far.
He considered the activism against Twitter as an affront to the First Amendment.
Musk unfortunately unleashed the storm after he announced his plans to restore suspended accounts, including the personal account of former US President Donald Trump.
Hate Speech
After the takeover, a social media analysis platform said the number of hate speech had increased.
Dataminr recorded one racist slur had jumped to 1,300 percent only days after the takeover, Bloomberg reports.
Musk also tweeted a baseless anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theory following the attack on Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi in her home. He deleted the tweet later.
Musk is an unpredictable person who vowed to overhaul crucial safeguards that have been in place on the platform, Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, said.
The digital rights group co-founded by Gill was instrumental in organizing a lobby to pull back ad spending with the different CEOs if Musk takes down safeguards.
Layoff Hits Twitter Employees
Hours after the reported ad pullback, Twitter laid off about half of its employees.
The company started to email its employees informing them of their status. Employees were told to check whether they were laid off or not.
Musk is reportedly considering firing at least 3,700 employees of the company. The mass layoffs took place on Friday, Nov. 4, impacting employees in Twitter offices worldwide.
The move, according to Livemint, seeks to cut operational costs while demanding those who were not laid off to follow the new work environment.
Twitter reportedly asked the impacted employees they would get a severance agreement next week. They were also asked further to waive any claims against layoffs.
Employees impacted by the layoff include those working in communications, engineering, and product and content curation.
Some users of the platform hit back at Musk, with the users accusingd the company of implementing massive layoffs like a slot-machine after its India office was hit severely.
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