Documents obtained by the Washington Post show that Elon Musk’s plans to make Twitter profitable are radical and will include a desire to cut the number of employees by 75%. It is unlikely that such a sharp reduction will be possible, as it will affect the normal operation of the enterprise. Twitter officials deny that there are plans for mass layoffs.

Twitter has 7,500 employees, and if the layoff plans go ahead, it will mean only 2,000 employees remain, impacting the company’s operations and greatly reducing its ability to moderately moderate content.

Interestingly, even if Musk had NOT made a takeover offer, Twitter would have made significant layoffs, reducing its headcount by 25% and cutting annual salary costs by several hundred million dollars.

It is not known that Elon Musk will buy Twitter, and if he does, it is hard to believe that he will be able to go to such drastic measures to reduce. However, it is almost certain that if Musk initiates the deal, the number of employees will be reduced by several tens of percent, clearly more than 25%.

A reduction of three quarters would put the normal operation of the company in real danger and would be a brake on expansion.

In recent weeks, several analysts have said that Twitter is not a $44 billion company, but that it will be worth much less, even less than $15 billion. Others have questioned the plans, which indicate the company’s rapid transition to profitability, as well as those that would indicate the possibility of Twitter reaching a billion users from its current 237 million.

Twitter hasn’t done well at all since the months when it seemed certain that Musk would buy the company, then it seemed highly unlikely. The fallout from these turbulent times is clear: workers are angry, many projects are on hold, stock prices are volatile and hiring is frozen.

Sources: Washington Post, TechCrunch, Reuters

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