Employees of Twitter Inc. expressed shock and tiredness on Friday, after Elon Musk’s announcement that he was cancelling a deal to purchase the social media business, which may be the beginning of many months of legal battling. Musk is a wealthy entrepreneur.
Musk stated that Twitter violated multiple provisions of a merger agreement that was reached in April and was worth US$44 billion. These provisions include failing to turn over sufficient data on spam accounts and letting go of certain executives and recruiters. Musk stated that these violations occurred. The chairman of Twitter’s board of directors said that the board intended to seek legal action in order to enforce the contract.
Engineers, marketing leaders, and other staff members at the company quickly took to Twitter to publicly post memes in what appears to be commentary on the most recent development in Musk’s courtship of Twitter since January. These memes include images of a roller coaster ride and a baby screaming into a phone. Others laughed at the idea that it would be impossible for them to breach their own personal obligations.
Employees have voiced significant anxiety about the possibility of Musk gaining control of Twitter because of his inclinations for reducing the number of employees as well as other expenses, lowering the amount of content moderation, and restricting employees’ ability to work remotely.
However, Musk’s offer, which he has since withdrawn, represents a 36 percent premium for the company’s shares and may result in a significant increase in compensation for staff and other shareholders. Following many months of nonstop news coverage, a Twitter employee expressed to Reuters on Friday that the company is feeling only more exhausted about the path that lies ahead.
Under the guise of maintaining their identity, the worker said, “I simply can’t believe that it’s truly over.”
“If only this wasn’t the beginning of a lengthy drawn-out court fight that will only wind up decreasing the purchase price and prolonging the circus for another unknown period of time,” commented Jared Manfredi, whose profile indicates he works on iOS products at Twitter.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the information that was included in their accounts, and they did not react promptly to requests for comment that were sent to them via private messages.
Twitter informed its staff one month ago that it was on pace to raise the number of users who saw advertisements by 13 million during the just-ended second quarter. This is the largest such target that Twitter has ever set for itself. Twitter has not yet made public its financial figures for the second quarter.
Musk, who is the chief executive of both the automobile manufacturer Tesla and the rocket firm SpaceX, said to the Twitter workforce at a video town hall later in the month that he intends to expand the company’s user base to at least 1 billion people from its current 229 million users. In addition to that, he advised them that users need to be permitted to publish “quite terrible stuff.”
Musk, who is active on Twitter very often, has said that if he owned a social media site, he could make it more enjoyable while still ensuring that it remained a vital public forum.
His attorney stated in a regulatory filing on Friday that Twitter had violated a deal provision to “preserve substantially intact the material components of its current business organisation” by dismissing two managers, laying off a chunk of its talent acquisition team, instituting a hiring freeze, and rescinding job offers. The filing was made in response to allegations that Twitter had violated a deal provision to “preserve substantially intact the material components of its current business organisation.” In addition to that, it mentioned the departure of three department heads.
As of the end of the year 2021, Twitter has more than 7,500 workers.
