One number of executives who have left the company after Musk launched his takeover bid, impacting countless others further down the food chain. “The feeling inside is that people have applied for jobs and they will continue to apply for jobs,” said the first Twitter employee.
The employees said they felt especially annoyed by the lack of management support when some employees got entangled Project Veritas’ sting designed to get them to openly say negative things about their potential new boss. “I joined Twitter and want to stay,” said the first employee. “I like my job. Nothing can keep me here now — even if they return to exactly the same way. “
Brain drain likely to continue, with current employees worried about Twitter cancel job offer to applicants and the possible impact on future applicants. A job applicant who was offered a position at Twitter this year, only after being rescinded during the takeover, said they would reapply to the company, but not before asking the person to apply for a job. managers to whom they will report on internal politics and future plans.
Others aren’t sure that the reputational risk to Twitter is as great as those inside the company fear. “The real worry is that he will democratize it too much and allow people to say inappropriate things about it,” said Cary Cooper, professor of business at the Manchester Business School. business at the Manchester Business School. “Shareholders will be worried because he has a commercial stance.”
However, Cooper thinks the investor impact could be more significant. “There is a downside, I think, because [Musk] he would think of it as a commercial enterprise acquisition, as well as a foundation,” he said. Cooper believes Twitter’s senior leadership team will have to raise the bar in Musk’s absence and come up with a new business plan to revive the company.
But there’s little sign of that, said Debra Aho Williamson, principal at market analysis firm Insider Intelligence. “The past few months have been a huge distraction for Twitter, making it impossible for it to focus on its business fundamentals,” she said. “If Musk can terminate the deal, Twitter will still have the same problems before he arrived on the scene. Its user growth is slowing. And while ad revenue is still growing slightly, Twitter is currently dealing with a slowing economy that could squeeze ad spend across all social platforms.”
There is also the question of personnel. The piling up of problems is a potentially predatory concern in the minds of Twitter’s investors. Vanguard Group, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Kingdom Holding Group and State Street did not respond to questions about whether they felt Twitter should fight Musk in court or let the deal close. Ives believes investors will prefer a Musk-free future for Twitter, with Agrawal leading the company and compensating Musk for punitive damages. Legal experts believe Musk will to pay a considerable amount if he doesn’t buy the company in the end. For the staff, that’s not nearly as much of an issue. “I can’t imagine what things will be like in five years,” said the first Twitter employee. “But I know that no one I know will be here.”
The route investors take could be crucial over the next few months — and whether Twitter can recover from the damaging events of the past three months. Twitter’s share price has fluctuated wildly since Musk’s involvement in the company was first announced on April 4, when he announced a 9% stake in the company. The price jumped 27% on the day his shares were announced, to $49.97. It then peaked at $51.70 on April 25, when Twitter’s board accepted Musk’s offer, before praising him when Musk began detailing the issues he was facing. he encountered with the platform and found reasons to withdraw from the agreement.
Today, Twitter’s share price opened at $34.64, 12% below its value immediately before Musk joined the company. It has fallen further since then. “Essentially, Musk took care of us, cared about the stock price, created a redundancy and cut,” the first Twitter employee told WIRED. “Morale is so low that no one wants to be here now.”
Additional reporting by Vittoria Elliott
