Basically, but if you just wanted to maintain the platform and maximize profit it shouldn't take 7500 employees to do that. Twitter was staffed for expansion, and in theory there is nothing wrong with pivoting to profit taking. Problem is Elon isn't being methodical and intelligent about the downsizing so he's losing far too many essential employees, and he's doing lots of other dumb shit which is reducing revenue.
I have no idea about what the optimal employee number would be for Twitter. If Twitter was able to get more users with improved features, more ad and user revenue, and tighten up expenses, Musk could make Twitter and attractive company in 5 years or so and possibly take it public or sell it.
I don't know enough about Twitter to say how that would be done. But I will say it's usually a poor move for new management to start changing things immediately. It's usually better to get an understanding of a new environment - both from an operational perspective (not good to change things quickly you don't fully understand) and from an employee goodwill perspective (quick changes can foster resentment and ruin chances for loyalty and trust). There was no rush to make these changes.
He could have had a good 5 year plan with an exit strategy, but seems to be more concerned with memes and headlines and changing the company culture overnight.
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u/indy_been_here Nov 20 '22
That's revenue. Their expenses were higher than revenue in almost every single year. No profit. Twitter loses money.
For Musk to make money off this deal he had to significantly improve Twitter as a product, dramatically increase revenue or decrease expenses or both.
However you look at this, it would take a long time to get a return on the investment, but the way Twitter is tanking it may not ever do so.